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PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

A STUDY IN THE 
APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY TO DAILY LIFE 



PSYCHOLOGY 
AND THE DAY'S WORK 

A STUDY IN THE 
APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY TO DAILY LIFE 



BY 

EDGAR JAMES SWIFT 

PBOFESSOB OP PSYCHOLOGY AND EDDCATION IN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, SAINT LOUIS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1918 



£ 






Copyright, 1918, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 1918 



mig ^ ^ 13 




1*00 



DLA508268 



TO MY WIFE 

WHOSE DEVOTED ASSISTANCE IN THE PREPARATION 

OF THIS BOOK 

HAS BEEN UNFLAGGING 



PREFACE 

Psychology considered as the science of human beha- 
vior is concerned with man's response to the impressions 
made upon him by objects, people, and events. They 
make up the situations that he meets. Behavior — the in- 
dividual's way of dealing with these situations — if not a 
complete failure, results finally in some sort of adjustment 
to the conditions in which one lives; and this adjustment 
culminates in social and moral habits, in habits of work, 
in ways of thinking and acting; in short, in habits of life. 
And through all the adapting process runs the influence 
of physiological conditions, and the effect of their changes 
caused by the manner of life and the advance of years. 
The adjustment may be mechanical and rigid, insensible 
to misfits, without power to readjust as conditions alter; 
or, again, it may be flexible and adaptive — capable of new 
adjustments as circumstances change. This adjustment 
represents the capacity of man for achievement. It is his 
efficiency — the strategy and tactics of life. 

It is well, then, from time to time to take an inventory of 
stock and try to discover the significance of the facts and 
principles of human behavior which investigation has re- 
vealed. A science is made no less scientific by applying 
its discoveries. The chemist and botanist are not con- 
cerned primarily with the practical application of the re- 
sults of their work, yet industrial chemistry and economic 
botany are rendering incalculable service to related lines 
of business. 

Psychologists have only recently extended their investi- 
gations into lines directly useful in explaining and inter- 
preting behavior. Yet their contributions in several fields 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

of the world's work are already impressive. In psycho- 
pathology, in legal psychology, in experimental pedagogy, 
and in the psychology of advertising, they have made 
noteworthy additions to the store of knowledge; and to-day 
psychological tests are being made in the army to deter- 
mine the fitness of men to do the work to which they 
aspire in the service of our country. 

Concerning the more common matters of every-day life, 
however, psychologists have offered relatively little of in- 
terpretative value. Yet these experiences make up the day's 
work. They determine its quantity and quality. Much 
has been written about making others efficient, but com- 
paratively little about one's own method of thinking, work- 
ing, and acting. Yet knowing oneself reaches far into suc- 
cess and failure; and there is no other way of understand- 
ing the behavior of others. It is, therefore, in the hope of 
interpreting a few of these personal experiences of daily life 
that this book is written. The topics that could be dis- 
cussed extend far beyond the limits of a single volume. 
The choice, of course, is largely personal, but the writer 
has tried to select types of conduct, as well as phases and 
causes of behavior, that are fundamental to thinking and 
acting, whether in the life of social intercourse or in the 
business and professional world. And, after all, thinking 
and acting determine achievement. 



Edgar James Swift. 



Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., 
September, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Organization for Mental Efficiency ... i 

II. Thinking and Acting 41 

III. Habit in Preparation for Efficiency ... 84 

IV. The Psychology of Learning . . . . . 123 
V. Fatigue and Its Psychology 164 

VI. Curiosities of Memory 198 

VII. Memory and Its Improvement ..... 236 

VIII. The Psychology of Testimony and Rumor . 273 

LX. Our Varying Selves 314 

X. The Psychology of Digestion 348 

Index ............... 379 



CHAPTER I 
ORGANIZATION FOR MENTAL EFFICIENCY 

Man's response to situations in the day's work is the 
measure of his efficiency. When the response results in 
behavior which satisfies the immediate, pressing demands 
and, in addition, adapts itself to change, growth, and prog- 
ress, efficiency is perfect. In other words, the ability of 
a man to react effectively to his daily problems may be 
gauged by his alert, flexible adaptation to changing cir- 
cumstances. The other side of the shield, however, is more 
familiar — the sight of the person whose response to new 
conditions is unreflective adaptation influenced by the 
force of habit, and nothing more. We select an illus- 
trative example from the many suggested by the present 
war. 

"It did not seem possible that human beings could 
brave these haunted streets," says Owen Johnson, 1 speak- 
ing of Arras under bombardment; "and yet human beings 
were there. ... In a broken street, where one shell had 
literally disembowelled a whole house, leaving only the 
roof hanging like a suspension bridge, whom should we 
happen upon but a postman delivering mail to a woman 
who rose cautiously from her cave. Remember, this was 
within fifty yards from the house which had been literally 
blown away. She was a sweet-faced old lady, untroubled 
and resigned. I asked the invariable question: 

"'How do you dare stay here?' 

"'Where would I go?' she said, with a helpless little 
look. 

"To her, as to the rest, to leave home meant the end of 
all things. The outer world was something uncompre- 
1 The Spirit of France, pp. 103 /. 



2 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

hended, which terrified her. The military authorities have 
done everything possible to enforce the evacuation of 
Arras, short of an absolute order, and yet they are met 
at every turn with this terrified clinging to the threshold, 
that prefers any risk rather than exile." 

Adaptation and habit — adaptation to terrifying condi- 
tions, and the ability of the individual to continue his nor- 
mal, habitual reactions in horribly abnormal situations! 
The nervous system cannot long continue to respond to 
repeated shocks. Either it becomes inured to the frequent 
mental concussions, which finally lose their power and 
cease to produce a response, or the nervous system gives 
way under the strain. Those who could not adapt them- 
selves to the awful conditions had left or become insane. 
It is rapid and inexorable selection in which the sight of 
dead and maimed friends and the constant prospect of 
sharing their fate are the tests of even temporary survival. 
Adapt themselves they must if they remain; but, for- 
tunately, the nervous system cares for that. 

Another instance of adaptation — a more common, every- 
day illustration — is related by S. S. McClure from his 
editorial experience. "In the winter of 1905-1906 the Chi- 
cago papers were filled day by day with news that revealed 
Chicago as a semibarbarous community in which life and 
property were unsafe to an extraordinary degree. This 
daily crop of news would be duly accented by reports of 
horrible crimes. I had a selection made from these papers 
which gave a criminal record of Chicago for the winter and 
revealed an appalling situation. Now it is a fact, which I 
have observed, that people will become accustomed to 
almost any environment. I remember, when I was in 
Turkey, where occasionally a village would be devastated, 
the children killed and women tortured, that people in an 
adjacent village, who might at any time become victims, 
went about their work quite calmly and indifferently; so 
that it is not surprising that this daily grist of news of 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 3 

the Chicago crimes was accepted by the citizens as a 
matter of course." x What is the explanation of these 
adaptations which lead, at times, to such incredible acqui- 
escence ? 

All variation by which an individual or a species is ad- 
justed to the surrounding conditions must be made by the 
organism. To be sure, fitness for types of variations must 
exist in the environment. Lung-breathing animals, for 
example, could not have arisen had it not been for the 
atmosphere which surrounds the earth, and adaptation to 
electricity could not have been made were it not for the 
prevalence of electrical energy. Had the earth and atmos- 
phere, with all the kinds of energy manifested in or 
through them, been different from what they are, living 
creatures, if they could have existed at all, would bear 
little or no resemblance to present forms. 

Within the limits set by the physical environment, how- 
ever, great variation is possible. It is entirely conceivable, 
for instance, that an air-breathing mechanism quite differ- 
ent from the lungs might have developed. What, then, 
determines the kind and range of variation? For the 
lower animals it is natural selection acting through struc- 
tural changes and instincts. Animals must adjust them- 
selves to conditions as they are. Such moderate altera- 
tions of the environment as the damming of a stream by 
beavers are, of course, observed; but these instances of 
control are sufficiently rare to be commented upon by zool- 
ogists. Usually animals must adapt themselves to a rigid 
environment, or perish. 

Adaptation is perhaps the most significant influence to 
which organisms are subjected. The character of the sur- 
roundings, so far as conformity conditions their life, forms 
a circle within which the organisms live. In the unicellular 
animals the circle is small. The essential nature of their 
habitat has altered little even through the ages. Conse- 
J McClure's Magazine, May, 1914. 



4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

quently, these simple animals have undergone little change. 
Their surroundings have put upon them few new require- 
ments which called for adaptive reconstruction. 

The history of animals from the lowest to man reveals 
continuous, though more or less interrupted, changes, re- 
sulting from the attempt to maintain harmonious relations 
between the organism and its environment. A certain 
equilibrium must be established between external forces 
acting upon the individual and his responses. Maintain- 
ing this equilibrium is what is meant by adaptation. 
Among the lower animals we have seen that strict conform- 
ity is the rule. Any change that takes place is forced 
upon them by the exigencies of their surrounding condi- 
tions. Few reconstruct their environment to any great 
extent before adapting themselves to it, and any recon- 
struction that they make is explained by some earlier ad- 
justment which has become fixed in them as an instinct. 

Man, on the other hand, because of the superior devel- 
opment of his brain, possesses greatly increased ability to 
alter his environment. In certain lines he has practically 
made over the world in which he lives. The changes 
growing out of the natural sciences have been stupendous, 
but in many other matters his "thinking" has been largely 
drifting. It is the same sort of involuntary, uncontrolled 
adaptation that is characteristic of the lower animals; and 
the reasons for this are the pressing demands for imme- 
diate adjustment which is as much a human as an animal 
requirement, and the fact that reconstruction of the en- 
vironment to enable the adaptation to be more intelligent 
calls for an expenditure of energy which man is loath to 
meet. Now efficiency requires that the quantity of intel- 
ligence in human adaptations be increased. But let us see 
how adaptation works out in the actual affairs of life. 

When a young man starts on his business or professional 
career he is at once confronted with certain obstacles — 
difficulties to be overcome. If he is a lawyer the obstacle 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 5 

may be the unwillingness of a witness to reveal facts with 
which he is familiar. Now there are different ways of 
approaching a witness, and one acquainted with human 
personalities knows that certain methods are successful in 
dealing with some men and worthless with others. It is 
almost certain, however, that the young attorney will 
adopt a method that expresses his own personality rather 
than that of the witness. In other words, his attitude and 
manner of questioning will be an unconscious adaptation to 
the difficulties that arise. Soon this form of behavior toward 
witnesses becomes an established adaptation. This is 
shown by the fact that lawyers are often described as re- 
lentlessly severe or as gentle and insinuating, leading the 
witness kindly to unforeseen admissions. 

If we say that we know when we succeed in what we are 
engaged upon, the statement must be qualified by adding 
that the standard of achievement may be low. Many 
college students, for instance, "succeed" if they obtain 
the "gentleman's grade" of mediocrity. For them it is 
sufficient to have just missed the lowest passing mark. A 
certain summer school, to illustrate further, celebrated an 
increase of twenty-five students over the preceding year. 
Yet the surrounding territory should furnish two or three 
times as many students as the school ever had. And, 
again, a salesman recently said with great elation that his 
sales for the year exceeded those of a fellow traveller whose 
record, the writer happened to know, was in the lowest 
third of those made by the salesmen in the organization. 
Since this relative success is the selective force in deter- 
mining the adaptations it is clear that the result may be 
altogether inadequate to the needs and possibilities of the 
situation. There is, however, a further fact of immense 
importance to adaptation. The human environment is 
not static. "There is no standing still in the business 
world to-day," said the president of a large manufacturing 
plant recently. "Everything is in continual change, so 



6 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

that a man no sooner adapts himself to one set of condi- 
tions than he must readapt himself to others. Those who 
cannot do so fall behind the more versatile. One of the 
largest manufacturers of engines failed to grasp the sig- 
nificance of the steam-turbine. The management sat still 
while other companies brought it to a successful commer- 
cial basis." 

Methods of doing the day's work also bring their prob- 
lems of organization and co-ordination. There is an enor- 
mous amount of overlapping of duties and responsibilities. 
A large furniture manufactory spent several days trying 
to determine the responsibility for failure to do a given 
piece of work satisfactorily and promptly. Each depart- 
ment concerned blamed another, and in the end no one 
was satisfied. Such inefficiency produces continual finan- 
cial loss and frequent dissatisfaction both within the or- 
ganization and with customers. 

Success in business, as in other matters, requires that 
conflicts be adjusted and difficulties overcome. Now the 
solution may be delayed until the problem is thought out. 
Then the several ways that suggest themselves may be 
thought through so as to determine how they would work 
out in practice. Again, one of the more promising solu- 
tions may be put to the actual test of a preliminary trial 
to determine what errors had been overlooked. As a mat- 
ter of fact, however, a man commonly uses neither of these 
methods. The idea in mind is the somewhat general 
notion of success, and the first method that seems to meet 
the exigencies of the situation is usually adopted. But 
the exigencies that are met are the immediate ones, those 
that are pressing for solution at the moment. The result 
is that the more remote, related conflicts are not adjusted. 
This was the case in the overlapping of responsibilities in 
the furniture factory to which we have referred. 

When we ask what determines the selection of the plan 
or m^hod of meeting difficulties that arise in business or 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 7 

in the professions, we come upon an important fact in 
human psychology. . The obstacle that confronts us must 
be overcome, and the method employed is commonly the 
first one that promises to attain the desired result. The 
situation is urgent and there is always a tendency to meet 
it with an economical use of energy. This frugality of 
energy does not indicate intentional slighting of difficul- 
ties. It is a phase of unreflective adaptation to them. 
In the acquisition of skill, where we shall see it playing a 
leading role, this adaptation is so strictly unconscious that 
the learner is not aware of the particular method which he 
has adopted for meeting a difficulty until he finds himself 
using it with more or less success. 

Now it is significant for efficiency that the method un- 
consciously adopted, in the unreflective adaptation of 
which we have been speaking, is not always the best. Out 
of six young men learning the juggler's feat of tossing two 
balls into the air, catching and tossing one before the other 
reached the hand, the writer found that only two adopted 
successful devices for avoiding "collisions" in the air, 
which was the difficulty they were trying to meet. The 
other four used methods which soon ended in failure. All 
six found themselves employing devices before they were 
aware of the attempt. The plan unconsciously adopted 
to meet an emergency, in acts of skill, is usually the one 
requiring the least expenditure of energy. A very small 
matter may be the determining cause. Unselected ac- 
tions follow the line of least resistance. So a business 
man attends to a matter of detail. It must be done at 
once, as it is an integral part of what he is engaged upon. 
To explain the matter to a clerk would require more time 
and energy at the moment than to do it himself. Conse- 
quently, he attends to the matter, and soon attention to 
details has become a habit. This adaptation is quite as 
unconscious as those which have been noted in acts of 
muscular skill. In both cases they are attempts to meet 



8 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

quickly an emergency, and the most available method — 
the easiest at the moment — is unconsciously employed. 

This mode of overcoming obstacles is the "trial-and- 
error" method. The term was first used to designate the 
manner in which animals attack a problem. They do not 
stop to think the matter over, but go right at it, trying one 
way after another in rapid succession until they either ob- 
tain the desired result or become discouraged and stop. 
The means which they employ are determined by specific 
inheritance or individual experience. If a dog, for exam- 
ple, within an enclosure sees food he will probably first 
stick his head between the bars; next he is likely to jump 
up and paw the bars; then he does something else until he 
finally hits upon the right combination for getting out and 
obtaining the meat. Afterward, by degrees, the useless 
actions are eliminated, 1 and the dog performs only those 
acts necessary to secure the food. 

It is commonly assumed that there is a sharp distinction 
in this respect between the actions of animals and man. 
The one does not reason, it is said, and the other does. 
j As a matter of fact, man does not reason as much as he 
: thinks he does. Perhaps this explains why he calls him- 
self a reasoning animal. He reasons so seldom that he 
likes to call attention to the little that he does. Children, 
for example, in learning to write use the trial-and-error 
method in determining the posture of the body and the 
movements in the writing. Of course it is used uncon- 
sciously, as in the other instances of which we have spoken. 
This is always the case in unreflective — unconscious — 
adaptation. The finger movement is the quickest way of 
getting results, and since it attains the desired end passa- 
bly well, it is used unless the teacher is insistent. That 
the arm movement in the long run is less fatiguing and 
produces a better writer does not avail unless the beginner 

* * For a full treatment of this subject, see Behavior, by John B. Watson, 
PP- 256/. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 9 

is held rigidly to instructions. In children and adults 
alike, if the first method meets the difficulty fairly well, 
it is likely to be adopted without further search for a 
better way. This is the explanation of slovenly habits in 
acts of skill, in language, literary style, and in other things. 
But it goes further than this. 

Unreflective — unconscious — adaptation was the method 
of progress during the early history of the race. Problems 
were not foreseen. There was no outlook beyond immedi- 
ate needs. Difficulties were met by the simplest possible 
adjustment, and the environment was the compelling, 
directing force. It was the trial-and-error method, with- 
out interpretation, without clarifying judgment. Through 
long years some working principles were acquired, but 
they were gained at an enormous cost of time and life, 
and the final result was, at best, an approximate and tem- 
porary makeshift. Learning the curative qualities of 
roots and herbs is an example of the method and of the 
value of the knowledge gained by it. Indeed, this way of 
making progress under the influence of prevailing beliefs 
and conditions, as well as the adjustment of knowledge 
and method to them, is admirably illustrated by the entire 
history of the art of medicine which preceded the scientific 
period. 

Systems of medicine — if the philosophical and religious 
view of diseases and their cures may be so dignified — fol- 
lowed one another as philosophy and religion changed. 1 
Medicine, like other beliefs, rested on authority. Systems 
were respectable or disreputable. Massaria, of Padua, in 
the sixteenth century, would rather be wrong with Galen 
than right with any other physician. One system was 
used until another was thought to be better, though at 
that time the trial-and-error judgment was guided more 
by the underlying philosophical belief than by the results 

1 Superstition in Medicine, by Hugo Magnus, 1908. The Relation of 
Medicine to Philosophy, by R. O. Moon, 1909. 



io PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the treatment. It could not be otherwise, since accu- 
rate records were not kept. One uncriticised authority 
ruled until superseded by another. But through it all the 
importance of finding the cause of diseases was unrecog- 
nized. There was no problem here. The mind, then as 
now, played its role in cures, and so we have Three Thou- 
sand Years of Mental Healing. 1 

Naturally in the past no other method of progress than 
that of uncriticised trial and error could be expected. 
The scientific method of investigation and experimentation 
was unknown. Consequently, there was nothing to stimu- 
late thought. Besides, thinking has never been popular. 
It is too difficult. So any means of escaping from it has 
always been welcome. And when, as in the earlier days, 
besides the pains natural to originality, the thinker risked 
his life, new ideas were rarely made secure until the old 
had been worn out by the corroding effect of time. In 
the past this had its justification, but in the present it is 
without excuse. Out of a long period of progress by un- 
conscious trial and error some truths emerge, but they are 
secured at an enormous cost of time and suffering. Blind 
trial and error is the animal and racial way. Unfortunately, 
it continues to be the chief method of modern man. Un- 
reflective adaptation is followed to-day when obstacles are 
not so overwhelming as to force deliberation. 

Man rarely stops to think out the method of proce- 
dure unless the difficulty is so great that no plan of action 
immediately presents itself. A momentarily insoluble 
problem is needed to make him think. But this is not all 
that is necessary. There must not only be a problem, but 
the individual must see it. The common supposition that 
problems are recognized is an error. Usually they pass 
unnoticed. If an illustration of so obvious a fact of human 
behavior is needed, advertising is a case in point. Thou- 
sands of dollars are spent for newspaper, street-car, and 

1 By George B. Cutten, 1911. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY n 

outdoor bulletin advertising without any intelligent effort 
to estimate the comparative value. To be sure, sales in a 
given advertised district are sometimes checked but there 
are too many local factors involved to give these estimates 
general value. Principles of advertising cannot be deduced 
in this way. These judgments have about as much value 
as the beliefs in the performances of so-called "psychics," 
such as foreseeing the future, mental telepathy, and the 
oracular nature of the writings of the ouija-board, which 
are still accepted on imperfect experiential evidence by 
the old women of both sexes. Again, the comparative cost 
per reader of full, half, and quarter page newspaper and 
magazine insertions is rarely known to business men. 
Yet these facts, and many more, may be ascertained by 
those who understand the method of scientific investiga- 
tion. Some of them have already been worked out by 
psychologists. Business men do not have the information 
because they have not yet become aware of the problem. 
They are using the slow, expensive, uncriticised trial-and- 
error method. 

The trial-and-error method is not without results. It is 
the means, as we have said, by which the experience of 
the race has been achieved. Knowledge has been slowly 
and painfully accumulated by the unplanned elimination 
of errors, but when uncriticised it is a wasteful process. 
The amazing advance of the natural sciences during the 
last quarter of a century is due to a new plan of campaign. 
Scientists no longer wait fo& the tedious, unintelligent 
elimination of mistakes. They set definite problems, study 
the conditions, and then plan their investigation so that 
the errors of earlier workers may be eliminated. This 
puts intelligence into nature's unintelligent method of 
progress. But the scientific plan has not been generally 
adopted. Usually man, like the lower animals, waits for 
something to turn up. Then he adapts himself as best he 
can. 



12 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Animals, we have observed, are dependent upon condi- 
tions that were forced upon them. To these they must 
adapt themselves or perish. But man can foresee and 
plan, if he will but use his intelligence. And by his plan- 
ning he may reconstruct the environment. The world has 
been amazed at the success of German arms against a 
large part of the civilized world. The explanation is that 
the Germans looked ahead and planned. And in their 
planning they created conditions which the Allies have 
had to meet. We have heard much about time being on 
the side of the Allies. This means that they could not 
at once adapt themselves to the new type of war; and 
these new conditions were produced by Germany. Her 
military staff saw the problems and made their arrange- 
ments so completely that the adaptation had to come 
largely from her enemies. Many of the plans of the Al- 
lies were rendered obsolete by her constructive military 
thought. Forts were demolished like paper houses, and 
entirely new implements of war had to be invented and 
made. It is doubtful whether we shall ever have a better 
illustration of man's control over the conditions he must 
meet than this present war. 

In industry, in commerce, and in military science Ger- 
many has risen above the animal method of unplanned 
adaptation, but in her failure to understand the collective 
mind of her enemies she has remained on the lower level. 
For her statesmen there existed no such problem. One of 
the many interesting psychological facts of the present war 
is the surprise of the German nation that the Allies do 
not know when they are whipped. The first magnificent 
Russian drive, followed immediately by the equally con- 
vincing Balkan victory, should have brought a request 
for peace from a purely military standpoint, which does 
not take into account different sorts of minds. And, again, 
the inability of the United States to recognize the righteous- 
ness of the German cause was to be explained, the Ger- 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 13 

mans thought, only by generous use of British gold and the 
mercenary nature of the people. But the Germans missed 
the point. Their ignorance of the psychology of other na- 
tions is one of the astonishing disclosures of this war. 
"They understand nothing of the spirit of man," as Mr. 
Britling said. 

The array of psychological blunders of the German mili- 
tary and civic authorities, to carry the illustration further, 
is unequalled in modern history. To mention only a few, 
there was first the invasion of Belgium, and the scrap-of- 
paper episode, which brought England into the war and 
shocked the civilized world. Then followed the sinking 
of the Lusitania, the execution of Edith Cavell and Captain 
Fryatt, the barbaric deportation of Belgians, the slaughter 
of women and children by air raids on unfortified towns, 
the Zimmermann note urging Mexico and Japan to make 
war on the United States, the secret proposal through 
neutral Sweden to promise protection to Argentine ships, 
and then to sink them "without a trace," the submarine 
perfidy that made the United States an active enemy, 
the planting of disease germs in Roumania, and the aerial 
bombardment of hospitals, by which wounded soldiers and 
nurses were killed — hideous exhibitions of brutality. No 
efficiency was disclosed by these acts; they reveal only 
amazing incapacity to understand the spirit and sentiments 
of civilized peoples. If these acts were not always un- 
planned adjustment to the supposed needs of the moment, 
they certainly show unintelligent adaptation. Was mili- 
tary necessity the motive ? If so, their efficiency is argu- 
able. But surely, sinking the Lusitania, the execution of 
Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt, murdering from the air 
innocent women and children, and bombing hospitals have 
not advanced the German armies. It is gross, inexcusable 
incompetency; and the massed psychological blunders have 
sealed Germany's fate. Is it asking too much to expect 
.a nation to be efljcient in various lines? Probably na- 



i 4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tional ability, like that of individuals, is specific and not 
general; then it is attained only in those fields to which 
serious study and thought are given. At all events, the 
German belief regarding the behavior of civilized nations 
toward her barbarous acts grew out of uncriticised experi- 
ence^ — the animal method. And the acceptance of uncriti- 
cised experience is adaptation to events as they come to us. 
Experience is a filing-case from which a man draws re- 
ports from his past life. And the analogy goes further. 
He selects from the files that for which he is looking. If 
one wants to believe something one will find ample justi- 
fication in one's memory records. A significant psycho- 
logical corollary is that another man with essentially the 
same "experience" will draw the opposite conclusion. In 
discussing questions of efficiency with business men the 
writer has found them differing vitally regarding matters 
of policy about which they should have agreed did "ex- 
perience" have objective validity. The disagreement was 
not in the facts but in the interpretation of them and in 
the attitude toward them. This last is important because 
the mental attitude ends by altering the facts themselves. 
If a man expects a plan to succeed the chances are that 
he will carry it through, and if one anticipates failure one 
is quite certain to be gratified. Unbelievers are often sur- 
prised at the experiences of followers of occult phenomena. 
The explanation is, of course, that believers see, hear, and 
feel what they are expecting. "Do you never have the 
feeling of having previously existed in another form?" a 
theosophical devotee once said to the writer. To the re- 
ply, "Never, madam," came the astonished exclamation, 
"That is strange! I often do!" Prophecies, again, fulfil 
themselves for their advocates. Believers in the miracu- 
lous cures by relics or mind produce the cure — if there is 
nothing serious the matter — by their belief. Primitive 
man, who was convinced that injury to his clay image 
would cause his death, fulfilled his fate because he lost his 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 15 

nerve; and, in more recent times, Charles Kingsley, speak- 
ing through Mr. Leigh, says: "I have seen, and especially 
when I was in Italy, omens and prophecies before now be- 
get their own fulfilments, by driving men into recklessness 
and making them run headlong upon the very ruin that 
they fancied was running upon them." 1 "Where there's 
a will there's a way" may not always be true, but it is a 
good mental attitude to bring the desired result. No one 
who did not believe in ghosts ever saw one, and visible 
spirits vanished with the coming of science, except in groups 
where science has not yet penetrated. The new knowl- 
edge that attends scientific investigation alters experience. 

Experience is evidently a treacherous guide because it 
is likely to give what one is seeking. "I have tried put- 
ting children on their honor and letting them govern them- 
selves, but it has failed," said a teacher recently. Of 
course it did. He expected failure and arranged the de- 
tails so that it had to fail. Another teacher replied that 
he had used the plan for ten years and could not get along 
without it. This confidence was the reason for his suc- 
cess. The Colorado penitentiary system which has trans- 
formed the prison and made the roads of the State would 
fail under a less enthusiastic believer than Warden Tynan. 

The trouble is not with experience but with the experi- 
encer. He gets what he is looking for and so does not 
question the result. A variety of meanings may be ob- 
served in most experiences, and the one selected is likely 
to be taken either from unwillingness to undergo the effort 
of thinking or from emotional bias, which, again, is favored 
by native indolence. Spiritualistic materialization illus- 
trates uncriticised, submissive adaptation from the side 
of perception. One medium has said that whenever she 
gives a seance, the stories told afterward grow, and always 
to her advantage. They grow so that when they come 
back to her she can hardly recognize her own work. "It 
1 Westward Ho I 



16 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

is a fact," she says, "that believers are so anxious for tests 
that they always help out, if they be believers, in the way 
that the medium desires they should." 1 This is because 
the mediums' desires coincide with the wishes of their fol- 
lowers. It is a common experience of lecturers to find an 
address interpreted in quite contradictory ways by dif- 
ferent hearers who read their own views into what was said. 
A friend has told the writer that he recently gave an ad- 
dress on mind-cures. The lecture was purely descriptive, 
giving the positions and beliefs of the several "schools." 
At the close of his address a New Thought advocate, a 
metaphysical healer, and a Christian Scientist went to the 
platform to express their pleasure at finding him in their 
ranks. Yet, so far as he expressed any opinion at all, his 
intention had been to show that suggestion was the common 
factor and operating cause in all mind-cures. Here, again, 
adaptation — accepting appearances and adjusting oneself 
to them — was perfect, but comprehension was negligible. 

Another instance of adaptation is the acceptance of suc- 
cession of events as indicating cause and effect. Shortly 
after McKinley's first election to the presidency of the 
United States, potatoes, which had been low, rose to over 
a dollar a bushel, an advance which was attributed by 
Wisconsin farmers to his election. The fact that a potato 
famine occurred, owing to continued droughts in wide 
potato areas, was ignored. 

Coincidences — agreement between events with wholly 
different causes or conditions, which, accordingly, are not 
likely to agree again — are often the basis of judgments 
and opinions, and adaptation is then made to their face 
value. Coincidence is the explanation of the importance 
ascribed to numbers by the ancients. Sometimes the co- 
incidence is astonishingly striking. "If to 1794," for in- 
stance, "the number of the year in which Robespierre 
fell, we add the sum of its digits, the result is 181 5, the 
1 Behind the Scenes with Mediums, by David P. Abbott, 191 2, p. 67. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 17 

year in which Napoleon fell; the repetition of the process 
gives 1830, the year in which Charles the Tenth abdi- 
cated. Again, the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1830, 
consisted of 402 members, of whom 221 formed the party 
called 'La queue de Robespierre,' while the remainder, 
181 in number, were named 'Les honnetes gens.' If we 
give to each letter a numerical value corresponding to its 
place in the alphabet, it will be found that the sum of 
the values of the letters in each name exactly indicates 
the number of the party." 1 

Teachers of psychology are frequently regaled with co- 
incidences seriously offered as "proof" of something that 
those who relate the stories want to believe. They are 
the basis of much of the evidence for "reasoning" in ani- 
mals, and it is probable that not a little of the circum- 
stantial evidence in criminal courts has no better founda- 
tion. The success of advertising campaigns, again, may 
frequently be traced to the same chance agreement of 
events. 

Animals low in the scale accept appearances. To them 
the world is what it seems to be. They are troubled neither 
by philosophic nor scientific doubts. They could not do 
otherwise and survive. If fishes stopped to examine a worm 
or a fly before seizing it they would starve to death. It 
is better that they take their chances. Appearances are 
true to fact often enough to meet their purposes. There 
are only a few things for which animals must provide — 
chiefly food and self-protection — and nature remedies 
their mistakes by rapid and numerous multiplication. 
The herring lays twenty thousand eggs, and the conger-eel 
the enormous number of fifteen million annually. It is 
more economical for nature to provide against annihila- 
tion in this lavish way than to make all animals clever. 
But, as we ascend the animal series intelligence begins to 
count, and then the offspring are not so numerous. The 
1 Principles of Science, by W. Stanley Jevons, 1900, p. 263. 



18 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

higher forms have better developed sense-organs, and they 
interpret more correctly the world in which they live. To 
them appearances may be deceitful. Foxes are famous 
for the skill with which they circumvent animals and man, 
when seeking food or escaping from enemies. In the arc- 
tic region they dig down through the snow under the trap, 
so as to spring it, and then they carry away the bait. The 
life of both parents and young is now important, because 
the offspring are not so numerous. Nature is not so ex- 
travagant in producing them. So they must be protected 
by cleverness if a given species is to survive. Far down 
the animal scale mechanical reactions are the only defense 
but among the higher forms intelligence has a greater 
value in nature's market, and in man survival depends 
only in a slight degree upon physical strength, at least 
beyond that which is needed to do his work. Intelligence 
is now the compelling factor. 

Man, however, has not developed a method of progress. 
He does not make it his business to criticise experience. 
Like the lower animals, he is prone to accept appearances 
as true to fact. In other words, he continues to use the 
animal method. To be sure, scientists, as we have said, 
have a method. They prepare an experiment so as to 
control conditions, and they eliminate one factor after 
another that the effect of each in the phenomenon under 
investigation may be determined. This is man's recon- 
struction of nature's trial-and-error method, but it is too 
slow and laborious to satisfy the unscientific. These 
people want immediate results. So they draw conclusions 
from limited and uncontrolled observations, and take 
much pride in what " experience" has taught them. The 
complacency of "self-made" men in their "experience" is 
well known. They have taken a heavy responsibility from 
their teachers and from the Almighty with their boast of 
being self-made. To be sure, some effort is being made 
to-day to test experience in matters outside of science. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 19 

Scientific management is an attempt to introduce an 
intelligent plan into industry, but it has been only hesi- 
tatingly admitted into factories, and the doors of other 
lines of business are still generally closed to it. "Efficiency 
experts," however, are commonly men who have had much 
experience in the business which they criticise, but little 
scientific training. Some of them do not know what an 
investigation means or how a problem looks. Few have 
studied psychology, which, for those who are dealing with 
human behavior, is of fundamental importance in deter- 
mining efficiency tests and plans. In municipal and gov- 
ernmental affairs, again, scientific management is only 
occasionally employed. Penology is still an awful chaos, 
and sociology an array of interesting but confused facts. 
In these matters, as in other things, "experience" is thought 
to be of only one sort, always yielding valuable knowledge. 

Experience, of course, organizes itself. But this organi- 
zation tends to proceed in the same unintelligent way that 
has been found to be characteristic of the organization of 
movements in learning an act of skill. In both cases the 
line of least resistance is followed. Personal bias and 
emotional preference play a leading part in the product of 
experience. Men are still much like those of old who re- 
fused to look through Galileo's telescope at the satellites 
of Jupiter because, as they said, the satellites were not 
there, but if they looked the devil would make them see 
them. Facts should be so classified that their bearing 
upon one another or their lack of connection may become 
clear. In this way the essential is distinguished from the 
unessential or accidental. This requires a wide knowledge 
not only in the business in which one is engaged, but also 
in related subjects. And for those who deal with human 
beings, and few occupations are not concerned with them, 
the science of human behavior — psychology — is needed. 
Unorganized facts, observation, or experience give, at best, 
only the "big, blooming, buzzing confusion" of which 



20 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

James spoke. Many are not sufficiently sensitive to feel 
the confusion. They let experience go its own way and 
organize itself, like the Oxford theologians who were ex- 
cited to violent antagonism at the production, by Faraday 
and others, of induced currents of electricity in a coil of 
wire by means of a magnet. Keble, also, professor of 
poetry in Oxford, was angry at the university because, as 
he said, it "had truckled sadly to the spirit of the times" 
in honoring these "hodgepodge philosophers." The ex- 
perience of these professors had been too limited, too un- 
disturbed to make them efficient in the world's problems. 

An uneventful environment means mental stagnation. 
With nothing to compel selective action comes dulness, 
then in time retrogression. Progress, improvement, re- 
quires resistance — something to work against. This is not 
without significance in the training of children. The time 
comes when boys should have something dangerous to 
do, something that requires strenuous effort, thought and 
courage, real adventure involving, in their mind at least, 
danger. If such adventures are not provided they will 
find them for themselves, if they have the stuff that makes 
for vigorous manhood. This is their way of reconstruct- 
ing their environment, of selecting and making the situa- 
tions to which they will adapt themselves; and it is quite 
comparable to the creations of engineers and men of "big 
business." If boys do not find adventures when they are 
not furnished them, if they adapt themselves to the color- 
less, uneventful life of the "well-behaved" boy, their 
childhood has been deprived of something as essential to 
mental growth as the hormones — "chemical messengers" 
— are to physical development. 

This need of courage in risk and adventure is as true of 
races as of individuals. The best period of a people, the 
period when they are doing things that are worth re- 
cording in their history, is their years of struggle, struggle 
against nature and against human adversaries. This is 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 21 

seen in the Roman republic and Grecian democracy. It 
is also observable in the rise and progress of religions, and 
it is equally true of individuals. Whatever truth there 
is in the accomplishments of self-made men lies in the 
fact that they had to fight against adverse conditions. 
Those who succeeded had staying qualities, perseverance, 
and the determination to win. Opposition, adverse cir- 
cumstances, do not put brains into men, but they draw 
out what there is in them. Obstacles also eliminate in- 
capables. And the reason why the sons of self-made men 
so rarely show the qualities of their fathers is that they 
are protected. The fathers supply them with money and 
automobiles, and "carry" them in business. The brain, 
like muscle, must work against resistance if it is to develop. 
Of course obstacles should not be beyond the available 
strength. Peoples sometimes succumb after brilliant ef- 
forts because the call was beyond their capacity, though 
sometimes by the psychological law of compensation their 
failure to maintain themselves as a nation may lead to 
success in literature, art, or science. But this does not 
necessarily mean that the losing battle which they valiantly 
fought was without significance. The quality of resis- 
tance, insufficient in battles and politics, was transferred to 
other fields. The need to fight developed staying quali- 
ties. In other cases, enervated by acquiescence and 
luxury, peoples have yielded to debilitating tendencies, 
and gone the way of the inefficient. Peoples and individ- 
uals are by nature indolent. They do not wish to exert 
themselves unnecessarily, and they are aroused only when 
ease is more unbearable than action. But neither races 
nor individuals can stand still. They are either progress- 
ing or retrogressing. Adaptation is always going on. 

An illustration of the psychological effect of working 
against resistance is seen in the occasional revelation of 
latent ability in men. Their achievements are usually 
below their maximum efficiency. They rarely do the best 



22 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of which they are capable. They grow to the smallest 
dimensions of their job and then stop. They do not make 
a little job into a big one. The reason for this, we have 
seen, is racial indolence. No more effort is expended in a 
piece of work than is required to produce a satisfactory 
result; and "satisfactory" is a variable quantity. There 
is usually no standard. Consequently, the result attained 
is far below the grade of which the individual is capable. 
It requires severe effort to maintain one's highest level of 
efficiency, and effort is a strain which one is loath to make. 
Consequently, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and business men 
are contented with efforts that bring fair results. So true 
is it that man is satisfied with the results which meet the 
lowest requirements of a situation that this human char- 
acteristic may be called the tendency to minimum effort. 

To be sure, the quantity of energy expended in intelli- 
gent effort varies with individuals. There are those who 
conscientiously strive to secure the best of which they 
are capable. But these rare persons are seeking promo- 
tion or looking forward to achievements in other lines. 
They, also, are adapting themselves, but they are making 
their adaptation to distant demands which they hold in 
view. No one, probably, maintains his highest level of 
efficiency unless a continually exciting and varying stim- 
ulus is active in the environment. In this respect the 
lower animals are superior to man. They use all of their 
powers to the limit of their capacity; and man does not. 
At the outset he puts tremendous exertion into an under- 
taking. Then his efforts relax, perhaps at first gradually 
and imperceptibly, until finally he is acting on a level of 
efficiency much below his ability. It is, therefore, of 
supreme importance that young men and women, during 
their adaptive period, be associated with those whose 
standards of achievement are high — who stimulate to con- 
tinuous effort toward better efficiency. This is not merely 
that we may be shown how to do the work more effec- 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 23 

tively but that the improvement-stimulus may be con- 
stantly operative. Only in this way can one keep alive 
at the growing-point. 

At times, when a man is put into a position of excep- 
tional responsibility, he throws himself into the work with 
the "sink-or-swim" determination, and then he displays 
power unknown to his friends or himself. Robert Louis 
Stevenson illustrates this when he makes one of his char- 
acters in St. Ives say: "There is no telling what a man can 
do until you frighten him." Sometimes the occupation for 
which one is fitted, as a great opportunity, reveals one's 
power. U. S. Grant is an example. But the most strik- 
ing illustration is Patrick Henry. "His companions" [in 
youth] ' ' recollect no instance of premature wit, no striking 
sentiment, no flash of fancy, no remarkable beauty or 
strength of expression; and no indication, however slight, 
either of that impassioned love for liberty, or of that ad- 
venturous daring and intrepidity which marked so strongly 
his future character. . . . No persuasion could bring 
him either to read or to work. On the contrary, he ran 
wild in the forest, like one of the aborigines of the country, 
and divided his life between the dissipation and uproar 
of the chase and the languor of inaction." l 

Established in business by his father, his inattention and 
indolence caused speedy failure. Given a farm, he could 
not make a living. Another failure followed a second 
attempt in business. Then, not knowing what else to do, 
he tried law. Neither he nor his friends had any hope of 
his success. But the rest of his career is interwoven in 
our country's history. The circumstances that surround 
one are evidently tremendously important in determining 
whether latent abilities shall reveal themselves. An en- 
vironment is either stimulating or inert. When stimulat- 
ing it arouses ambition, effort, and will— the determination 

1 William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, vol. I, 
p. 24. 



24 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

to achieve — but if it is inert the adaptation is at the lowest 
level of efficiency. The individual then unconsciously, and 
quite likely unintentionally, expends his energy so grudg- 
ingly that he meets the minimum requirements of his work, 
or fails, as did Patrick Henry until he chanced upon a 
vocation that aroused all his latent powers. Here, then, 
is the psychological significance of adaptation. Let us 
consider it somewhat further. 

As we ascend the animal series organisms become more 
complex. These higher forms represent the animals that 
have been able to adapt themselves to a wider range of 
conditions. The circle of requirements has enlarged. The 
change has not been sudden. Neither has it been con- 
scious. It has been a blind struggle for survival. If the 
change is too rapid or the required alteration too great the 
animals cannot make the adaptation and the species per- 
ishes. Those that succeeded have built their new lives 
upon the graves of incapables. The trail through the pre- 
historic jungle to modern times is strewn with the remains 
of animals that failed to qualify for new requirements. 

Education, in its broadest meaning, consists in coming 
into such rapport with the environment as to meet success- 
fully the exigencies which arise. Adjustment is always an 
element in education, and in the lowest forms of life that 
is all there is to it. At this stage, then, education is 
wholly a matter of organic adaptation which results in 
physiological modification. The animal reacts differently 
to new conditions — behaves differently — because it is 
physiologically different. The education of man differs 
from that of the lower animals in the inclusion of factors 
which play no part in the development of lower forms of 
life. Adaptation, however, is no less forceful in its re- 
quirements and no less effective in producing alteration. 
Only now the changes are mental as well as physiologi- 
cal. Al Jennings, the reformed bandit and train-robber, 
and former leader of the once famous "Jennings Gang," 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 25 

has given an interesting illustration of adaptation from his 
own life. "I am always surprising my friends," he says, 
"by deductions which they take for a kind of clairvoyant 
instinct. For example, I will be sitting with a group of a 
dozen people having a talk. Some one will look up and 
say : ' Why, where's John gone ? ' No one but me will know. 
I can always tell when and how he left the room. Usually 
I have learned by his expression and gesture what made 
him leave, and all that without losing any of my absorp- 
tion in the conversation. It wasn't so before I took the 
road ; I got the habit in prison. That my old crimes raised 
me from a rough country practitioner to a real lawyer I 
haven't the slightest doubt." 1 

The writer doubts whether it was prison life which awak- 
ened his dormant mind. Daily, relentless need for the 
minutest observation and most rigorously exact interpre- 
tation of persons and events outside of prison did the 
work. Heavy rewards upon his head severely strained 
the loyalty of friends. Failure to read their faces, when 
forced by need of food to accept hospitality, meant cap- 
ture or death. Illustrations are not wanting in his book. 
"If there were two men in the whole territory on whom I 
depended, they were Sam Baker and Red Hereford. I 
stopped at Baker's on my way out. His wife told me 
that he had gone to find us boys. Her manner made me a 
little suspicious. When presently Baker came in he seemed 
cordial enough, but he asked where we were going, ap- 
proaching the subject indirectly. Curiosity about the 
other fellow's whereabouts wasn't etiquette in our set. 
The next day I made Red Hereford's with Bill, whom I'd 
met on the road. There, also, the atmosphere had changed. 
It wasn't what he said — it was his manner." 

The game of adaptation is two-sided and the player 
must keep up with it. A changing, uncertain environ- 
ment makes demands upon those in it, and an active mind 
1 Beating Back, by Al Jennings and Will Irwin, pp. 310 ff. 



26 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

responds with its adaptations and reconstructions. Those 
who cannot meet the issues succumb either by suffering 
the supreme penalty of. failure or by dropping to a lower 
level, where the less exacting demands can be met. In 
Al Jennings' world of that day the latter meant becoming 
cattle rustlers or ordinary thieves. To remain in the 
criminal aristocracy required intellect and bravery. Both 
of these Jennings had, and they came out when needed. 
, Prison-life adaptation is more likely to cause deteriora- 
tion than to develop mental keenness. Robert Louis Ste- 
venson observed this effect. "For it is strange," he says, 1 
"how grown men and seasoned soldiers can go back in life; 
so that after but a little while in prison, which is after all 
the next thing to being in the nursery, they grow absorbed 
in the most pitiful, childish interests, and a sugar biscuit 
or a pinch of snuff becomes a thing to follow after and 
scheme for." 

The sharpening of his intellect, which Jennings attributes 
to his life "on the road" and in prison, came from the need 
of the fullest development of all of his powers of percep- 
tion, interpretation, and reasoning. Self-preservation is a 
stern and effective teacher. The conditions of his life 
called for certain responses — behavior — which were possi- 
ble only as the result of functional changes. These changes 
were largely in the nervous system. He saw more, inter- 
preted better what he saw, and reasoned more correctly on 
the basis of his interpretation. 

That it is possible to see much more than is usually ob- 
served has been proven by Pfungst in his investigation of 
"Clever Hans," the so-called educated horse. 2 Without 
any further practice than was involved in making the ex- 
periments, Pfungst, playing the part of the horse, was able 
to see and interpret the unconscious movements of the 
persons, who thought three numbers together with their 

Utaf, * St. Ives, p. 2. See also My Life in Prison, by Donald Lowrie. 
1 Clever Hans, by Oscar Pfungst, 191 1. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 27 

sum, so as to determine the order in which the numbers 
were mentally added. For example, a man thought of 
12 as 5 + 5 "f 2 and as 2 + 5 + 5, and Pfungst, as he 
tapped off the number with his hand, could determine by 
watching the man which order the number took in his 
mind. The significance for interpreting events of this 
sharpened observation and inference is obvious. 

Adaptation to a changed environment is also seen in 
the altered conduct of States-prison convicts when placed 
under new conditions. These striking changes, which 
often amount to a revolution in the character of the pris- 
oners, are so much a matter of general knowledge to-day 
that it is only necessary to refer to them. In Colorado, 
convicts have been employed making roads two hundred 
miles from the prison. The men were housed in tents 
and dugouts, away from the towns near at hand, and the 
camps were guarded only to keep away tramps and prowl- 
ers who might attack the commissary or carry away other 
property. 1 "For a long time the only man who carried 
firearms in one of these camps was a long-time prisoner 
who patrolled the place for the above reason. . . . We 
have now" [when the letter was written] "three hundred 
men employed away from the walls, and yet in the last 
eight months only one man has escaped." 

Mr. Fremont Older, of the San Francisco Bulletin, has a 
former stage-robber as manager of his ranch. "He is 
absolutely honest and could be trusted with a million dol- 
lars. He has served four terms, aggregating thirty-eight 
years, for stage robbery and highway robbery, and he 
was considered the worst man in California." 2 Evidently 
adaptation has a wide reach in making and remaking men. 

Perhaps the explanation of the change in these convicts 
when placed under a new environment is to be found in 

1 Information contained in a letter from Warden Tynan. Used with 
permission. 

2 From a personal letter. Used with permission. 



28 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

a statement of an Oregon convict. Governor West was 
convinced that the shoe-shop of the penitentiary was in- 
efficient. So he telephoned the warden and asked that a 
prisoner, whom he designated by number, be sent to him. 
The convict came unguarded. He was told that he should 
go to Oregon City, study the machinery of the shoe-shops, 
and report on what was needed to make those of the 
penitentiary efficient. He went, again unguarded, and on 
his return told the governor what was necessary to make 
the prison shoe-shops modern. The governor then said 
to him: "Now, you're in for life, a murderer. You have 
tried to get away before. Why didn't you try it this 
time?" "Well, I'll tell you, governor. I've tried it be- 
fore. This would have been a pipe for sure. But it's the 
first time since I can remember that a man trusted me. 
I couldn't throw you down." 1 

These human pictures represent men's physiological and 
mental reorganization in a changed environment. They 
are wholly comparable to the adaptations of lower animals. 
Habits and actions — behavior viewed in the large — are not 
isolated states. They are responses to environmental 
situations, and they can be rightly appraised only when 
considered in relation to these environing conditions. Be- 
havior involves two factors, the organism, and the objects 
or circumstances that it faces. The external conditions 
demand adaptive response. At one time this demand 
imposes the penalty of death for failure to meet it, and at 
another the ridicule of associates with all the anguish that 
accompanies ostracism. 

The human will is not resistless. It is influenced by 
racial and individual traits, some of which originated in 
needs quite different from those of the present day. Con- 
sequently, the adjustment of action to environment is at 
times imperfect. Primitive man, like his animal ancestors, 

1 New York Times, May 2, 191 2. Verified by a letter from the secretary 
of former Governor West 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 29 

expended tremendous strength and, having won his fight, 
relapsed into inaction, revelling in the fruits of his vic- 
tory. Man is able to maintain a persistent battle-front 
only in extreme danger to his life. At other times he 
gradually relaxes his vigilance and finally, when resistance 
becomes too great a burden, he slowly yields. Witness 
the progress of reforms. A crying need is felt and volun- 
teers are not lacking. But soon, confronted with con- 
tinued opposition, enthusiasm wanes and vanishes, and 
things remain much as they were. The overwhelming but 
temporary outburst of indignation after the Iroquois Thea- 
tre and the Triangle Shirt-Waist Building burned, with 
their appalling loss of life, are illustrations. Enthusiasm 
comes in waves, but the effort needed to keep it going is 
too exacting. 

All of these forms of behavior are phases of adaptation. 
In the case of the convicts of whom we have spoken, the 
social and industrial conditions confronting them required 
more mental, moral, and physical stamina than they had 
at their disposal. When, at a later time, the circumstances 
surrounding them favored an ethical, social attitude, when 
opposition to the unsocial did not require such strenuous, 
unremitting resistance, new adaptations followed. Only 
when it is recognized that will is an adaptive process, the 
outcome of pitting ideas, emotions, and thoughts, with 
their judgments, against surrounding conditions, will a 
social science be possible. As we shall see later, the will 
is not a "faculty" — a single, simple force. It is the whole 
mind active, impulses, emotions, ideas, and ideals, but it 
is active with reference to something external to it. Life 
is not action. It is reaction. 

The illustrations of adaptation which we have given 

are those of individuals — made within the lifetime of one 

person. When we turn to racial adaptation an interesting 

observation has been made by Boas. 1 He claims to have 

1 Senate Document, No. 208, Sixty-first Congress, 2d Session, p. 7. 



30 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

found that "the head form, which has always been con- 
sidered as one of the most stable and permanent charac- 
teristics of human races, undergoes far-reaching changes 
due to the transfer of the races of Europe to American 
soil." 

Another example is seen in Stefansson's blond Eskimo 
of Victoria Island. 1 His measurements of 104 of these men 
"give an index of 97, which places the 'blond Eskimo,' 
when judged by head form, exactly where it places them 
when judged by complexion — in the class with persons who 
are known to be of mixed Eskimo and white descent." 
Naturally, adaptation was favored by cross-breeding, but 
if Stefansson's theory is correct the Scandinavians who 
survived in their westward journey from Greenland must 
have practised very rigid adaptation. This is shown by the 
fate of early discoverers, as Sir John Franklin's party, who, 
though equipped with protecting devices and a reasonable 
quantity of food, could not meet the conditions sufficiently 
well to survive. 

We have been discussing adaptations which were more 
or less successful and which made the individuals or group 
more efficient in respect to the exigencies that they fitted 
them to meet. But human adaptation is not fully illus- 
trated by success. Let us therefore turn for a moment to 
some failures. If the death-rate increases it is evidence 
of lack of intelligent adjustment to conditions. And this 
is exactly what is happening in the United States to-day. 
Government reports show that the death-rate from organic 
diseases in this country has been steadily rising since 1880. 
It might be assumed that this is a necessary state of affairs 
due to uncontrollable causes involved in the progress of 
civilization were it not for the fact that during this period 
the death-rate from the same causes has not risen in Eu- 
ropean countries of a corresponding degree of civilization. 
"Coincident with the increase in the death-rate from or- 
1 Vilhjdlmur Stefdnsson, My Life with the Eskimo, 1913, pp. 192 jf. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 31 

ganic diseases in the United States, the advance has oc- 
curred in the general death-rate in all age periods, com- 
mencing with age forty to fifty." 1 

The last report 2 of the United States Census Bureau 
gives 1,001,921 deaths for the year 1916 in the "'registra- 
tion area,' which contains approximately 70 per cent of 
the population of the entire United States. ... Of these 
deaths nearly one-third were due to three causes — heart 
disease, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. . . . The deaths 
from heart disease (organic diseases of the heart and endo- 
carditis) in the registration area in 191 6 numbered . . . 
159.4 per 100,000 population. The death-rate from this 
cause shows a marked increase as compared with 1900, 
when it was only 123.1 per 100,000." The mortality rate 
from Bright's disease and acute nephritis has increased, 
with some yearly fluctuations, from 89 per 100,000 in 1900 
to 105.2 in 1916; and the rate from diabetes has risen al- 
most continuously since 1900, when it was 9.7 per 100,000, 
to 1 91 6, when it was 17 for the same number of inhabi- 
tants. Arterial diseases, again, have increased from 6.1 
in 1900 to 25.6 in 1912; and the increase of the mortality 
rate from apoplexy has been continuous since 1913. These 
startling figures become even more impressive when it is 
remembered that an organic disease, especially of the 
heart or kidneys, makes the prognosis decidedly more un- 
favorable for an acute disease like pneumonia, and this 
was one of the three diseases that caused nearly one-third 
of the deaths in the registration area during the year. 
Tuberculosis, another of the three, still "causes more 
deaths annually than any other malady, except heart dis- 
eases, and about 37 per cent more than all external 
causes — accidents, homicides, and suicides — combined." 

1 E. E. Rittenhouse. Paper prepared from government reports and life- 
expectancy tables at the request of the Committee on Public Health Educa- 
tion of the Medical Society of the County of New York, and read at the 
Academy of Medicine. 

* Bureau's Summary of Mortality Statistics, issued Nov. 27, 1917. 



32 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Yet tuberculosis is an eradicable disease if proper atten- 
tion is given to fresh air and out-of-door exercise. 

The general death-rate has declined in recent years, but 
this does not mean that the race is more vigorous. The 
decline in mortality is chiefly in infancy, childhood, and 
early adult life. And the reason is better defense against 
germ diseases. The evidence indicates that deaths from 
wear and tear are increasing. Vital statistics show that 
the expectancy of life from shortly before forty years of 
age has been gradually but steadily falling. The investi- 
gations of Rittenhouse indicate that during the last thirty 
years the death-rate from organic diseases has increased 
86 per cent in Massachusetts and 94 per cent in fifteen 
American cities. And yet, while the death-rate from 
these causes has been increasing in the United States, it 
has been stationary or decreasing in England, Germany, 
Sweden, and France. Since these countries do not have 
better physicians than the United States, there can be 
but one explanation — lack of intelligent adaptation to the 
rapid changes which have been taking place during recent 
years. 

The mortality rate from some of the organic diseases 
has doubled within forty years. A striking increase in 
deaths from diseases of the heart, arteries, and liver begins 
between thirty and forty years of age, the maximum being 
reached at sixty or shortly after; and when the decades 
preceding 1881 and 191 1 are compared it is found that 
during the latter period the expectation of life has been 
lowered for all ages after forty. The condition which 
these statistics indicate has attracted the attention of the 
United States Public Health Service, which has sent a 
warning 1 through the country. 

"At the age of forty the expectation of life," the state- 
ment runs, "is less now than it was thirty years ago. 
This is true for both men and women. Life expectancy 
1 Exercise and Health, by F. C, Smith, Government Printing Office. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 33 

during infancy and childhood has increased owing to more 
intelligent care of young children, to the introduction of 
diphtheria antitoxin, and other means of combating the 
infectious diseases, and to more sanitary living. But the 
diseases of degeneration are increasing, especially those 
involving the kidneys, heart, and blood-vessels, particu- 
larly among persons not employed at manual labor. One 
reason for this is the lessened physical and the increased 
mental work entailed by our complex social fabric. More 
people are engaged in sedentary occupations than formerly. 
More nervous energy is required of a man. Deprived of 
the natural assistance which physical exercise affords in 
eliminating through skin and lungs the waste products of 
the body, the kidneys become overloaded and fail. Lack- 
ing the normal assistance which working muscles give to 
circulation as they urge the blood and lymph onward in 
the natural channels, and overloaded with food poisons 
which brain-work cannot burn up as physical exercise will, 
the arteries become brittle and weak and the heart muscle 
flabby, like the biceps of its unfortunate possessor. The 
florid business man succumbs to apoplexy, perhaps; another 
big, pasty-complexioned brain-worker to nephritis; another 
to a fatty heart or to chronically overtaxed digestion, all 
of which could have been postponed for many years by a 
moderate amount of daily exercise." 

The lack of applied intelligence of homo sapiens is shown, 
again, by the report of the Committee of One Hundred on 
National Health. There are over 625,000 deaths annually 
in the United States which could be prevented, and at least 
half of the 3,000,000 sick-beds now constantly filled would 
be empty if the existing knowledge of hygiene were ap- 
plied. 

"The health examinations of the Life Extension Insti- 
tute have revealed unsuspected ailments in persons who 
considered themselves well, and to an extent which has 
astonished even those who have long been familiar with 



34 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

these subjects. Among large groups of clerks and em- 
ployees of banks and commercial houses in New York 
City, with an average age of twenty-seven, and all sup- 
posedly picked men and women, only i per cent were 
found free of impairment or of habits of living which are 
obviously leading to impairment. Of those with impor- 
tant physical impairments, 88.88 per cent were, prior to 
the examination, unaware of impairment; 16 per cent of 
the total number examined were affected with organic 
heart trouble, 42 per cent with arterial changes, ranging 
from slight thickening to advanced arterio-sclerosis, 26 
per cent with high or low blood-pressure, 40 per cent had 
sugar, casts, or albumen in the urine, 24 per cent had a 
combination of both heart and kidney disease, 47 per cent 
had decayed teeth or infected gums, 31 per cent had faulty 
vision uncorrected. 

"Among industrial groups, not exposed to any special 
occupation hazard or poisoning, the figures were as follows: 
With an average age of thirty-three, none were found to 
be free of impairment or of living habits which are obvi- 
ously leading to impairment. Of those with important 
physical impairments, 89 per cent were, prior to the ex- 
amination, unaware of impairments; 3 per cent of the 
total number examined were affected with organic heart 
trouble; 53 per cent with arterial changes, ranging from 
slight thickening to advanced arterio-sclerosis; 23 per cent 
with high or low blood-pressure; 45 per cent had sugar, 
albumen, or casts in their urine; 26 per cent had a com- 
bination of both heart and kidney disease; 69 per cent had 
decayed teeth or infected gums; 41 per cent had faulty 
vision uncorrected." 1 

No single explanation for this physical deterioration can 

be given. Probably, however, the most fundamental cause 

is the sudden change, during the last two generations, from 

muscularly active lives, spent mostly out-of-doors, to 

1 How to Live, by Irving Fisher and Eugene L. Fisk, pp. 136/. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 35 

physically inactive lives, lived chiefly indoors. The pro- 
portion of city inhabitants has increased more than 130 
per cent in the last fifty years; and while our city popula- 
tion has increased 35 per cent during the last decade, the 
rural population has increased only about 1 1 per cent. 

This change from an active out-of-doors life to the inside 
of the shop or office has started a physical impairment 
which city conditions have promoted. The body and 
organs cannot at once readapt themselves from a life of 
action in the open to sedentary conditions in confined, 
overheated, dried-out, devitalized air. After they have 
made their adaptation to these conditions the race will be 
a long way on the road to decline. 

Speaking of these facts with reference to two of the 
prevalent diseases — arterio-sclerosis and diabetes — Crile 
says: "It is essentially a story of the modern world; of 
power and progress and success; of liberty and luxury, 
and of their antitheses. . . . The identification of the 
common causes of diabetes with the common causes of 
Graves' disease may explain why, in the words of a cer- 
tain phrase-maker, 'When stocks go down in New York 
diabetes goes up'; why diabetes is more commonly found 
in large cities, among individuals and races who are con- 
stantly under a strain of business perplexities, and who 
are constantly within sight and hearing of thousands of 
irritating and harassing episodes, and why it is rare in 
localities where leisurely and quiet ways of life prevail." l 

The physical waste produced by city life calls for stimu- 
lants and narcotics to speed up energy or dull the feeling 
of fatigue. Proof of this is not wanting. The annual 
consumption of alcoholic liquor, for example, has increased 
from 6.5 gallons per capita to nearly 20 gallons since i860, 
and, as evidence of the significance of this, life-insurance 
companies have found that "the death-rate of very mod- 
erate drinkers among the insured is 18 per cent higher 
1 Man: An Adaptive Mechanism, by George W. Crile, pp. 225, 241. 



36 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

and of steady drinkers 86 per cent higher than the aver- 
age."' 

Besides this, $1,200,000,000 worth of tobacco is annu- 
ally burned, and, with probably still more disastrous effect, 
the consumption of coffee per capita has increased 54 per 
cent during the last two generations. Then, as another 
indication of the enervating effect of "civilized" life, 
75,000,000 pounds of drugs are consumed annually, most 
of them, if druggists are to be believed, without the advice 
of a physician, and the yearly consumption of patent 
medicines and nostrums of one sort or another has in- 
creased 365 per cent per capita beyond that of thirty-five 
years ago. 

If it be asked, What have these facts of physiology and 
hygiene to do with psychology? the answer is obvious. 
The mind is not an ethereal, spiritual force inhabiting the 
brain. Mental processes accompany certain cerebral proc- 
esses, and the productivity of the mind is not unrelated to 
the vigor of the nervous system and of the body in general. 

But other unintelligent adaptations are evident in mod- 
ern social and especially urban life which hasten physical 
impairment. There is a dangerous tendency toward habits 
of physical ease. Athletics in schools and colleges are lim- 
ited to a few. The others take their exercise vicariously 
on the bleachers. Increase in wealth has brought luxuries 
and ease. The apartment janitor or house man does the 
work formerly done by boys. Walking is rapidly becom- 
ing a lost art. People ride in street-cars or automobiles. 
Even the sauntering that boys do must conform to a cer- 
tain "style" that predisposes to impairment. The "col- 
lege slouch" is an illustration. An examination of 746 
Harvard freshmen showed 2 that four out of every five 
stand and walk in a slumping posture, and that three out 

1 Address at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Association of Life In- 
surance Presidents, 1916, by E. E. Rittenhouse. 

2 Lloyd T. Brown, M.D., Harvard Illustrated, vol. 18, p. 280. 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 37 

of five do not know how to take a correct position even 
when they try. It was also found that the students who 
affect the slouch have a greater variety and a higher per- 
centage of sickness than those who stand erect. 

The physical deterioration of young Americans is strik- 
ingly shown by the rejections for physical causes among 
those who have applied for admission to the army or navy. 
Out of 562 candidates for West Point in 1914, 142 were 
physically unfit and were rejected. These figures are the 
more dismaying when it is recalled that all candidates 
undergo a preliminary medical examination before going 
to West Point. The conspicuously unfit, therefore, never 
reach the final examination to which these figures refer. 
Yet, out of those sent to West Point we find about one- 
fourth rejected for physical reasons. 

The first draft under the Selective Service Act of 191 7 
furnishes the latest information regarding the physical 
condition of our young men. Of those called and exam- 
ined 29.11 per cent were found physically unfit; 1 and yet, 
notwithstanding these disturbing figures, the command- 
ing officers of several cantonments have complained that 
too many who were physically unfit have been sent to the 
camps. 

Of those who applied for admission to the Naval Acad- 
emy in 1914, 30 per cent were rejected; in 1915, 25 per 
cent, and in 191 6, 16 per cent. In these cases, also, a 
preliminary physical examination eliminated the con- 
spicuously unfit before they reached the academy. It is 
probable that the smaller number of rejections in 1916 
was the result of lowering the physical requirement on 
account of the prospect of war, though at no time have the 
demands on "fitness" been unduly severe. 

According to a statement issued in December, 1916, by 
recruiting officers of the United States Marine service, 
only 1 out of every 30 who applied for admission from 

1 Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War, 1918. 



38 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Manhattan were in sufficiently good condition to be avail- 
able. Referring to a large number of candidates, Captain 
L. P. Pinkston, of the New York City recruiting bureau, 
recently said that out of 11,012 applicants, only 316 could 
be accepted. Such is the physical preparedness of the 
men of New York City — 1 in every 35 who applied is 
physically fit to be a marine ! What are the chief defects ? 
They are much the same the country over — heart trouble, 
flat chests, and flat feet. Too little walking makes flabby 
muscles and flat feet, and then flat feet forbid walking. It 
is one of those vicious little circles. 

The mental effect of deterioration of the tissues of the 
bodily organs is evident. The will depends hardly less 
upon the stomach than upon the brain. It was no mere 
rhetorical flight of the imagination that led Henry Ward 
Beecher to cry: "It is as difficult for a dyspeptic to enter 
the kingdom of heaven as for a camel to pass through 
the eye of a needle." Aside from the physical effect, 
knowing that one is diseased plays a leading role in the 
drama of life. Thinking and judgment suffer, and the 
determined, efficient man becomes vacillating and unre- 
liable. 

We have seen that the changes which occur in the or- 
ganism may be described in large part in terms of adapta- 
tion. The external environment is the stimulus to which 
the physical organism reacts. Only when the environment 
is static do physical alterations reduce to the minimum 
or cease altogether. Every significant change in the en- 
vironment puts the organism out of harmony with it and 
some sort of reorganization and, finally, reconstruction is 
necessary if the environmental change is sufficiently great. 
Failure to make the adaptation perpetuates the lack of 
harmony which, with time, may become sufficient to cost 
the individual its life or even to annihilate the species. 
With a stationary environment there is growth but no de- 
velopment. Development implies a reconstruction — men- 



MENTAL EFFICIENCY 39 

tal and physical — leading to the restoration of a lost equi- 
librium between an organism and its environment. If 
this reconstruction produces greater organic complexity to 
meet more involved conditions of life there is progress. 

Adaptation may take a form of response already per- 
fected or in process of becoming fixed, or, again, there may 
be a tendency to alter the reaction to meet the varying 
needs of the environment. If the established response is 
continuous through the species — with the moderate varia- 
tion observed in even so-called fixed reactions — it is in- 
stinct, and if it is peculiar to an individual it is habit. 
The ability of an organism to break away from established 
types of response — to adapt itself better to new conditions 
— measures its capacity to develop. When changed con- 
ditions in the environment are met by a responsive adjust- 
ment of behavior in the organism, the variation thus in- 
troduced leads to the establishment of a new reaction, 
which tends again to become fixed in habit. Along with 
the impulse to adapt and, when necessary, to readapt 
oneself to altered circumstances, there is always the ten- 
dency, as we have noticed, to do so with as little expendi- 
ture of energy as possible. Change, whether organic or 
mental, is always resisted. During any marked change in 
the essentials of an environment many perish because of 
inability to meet the new requirements. Those that sur- 
vive make as little change in structure and behavior as 
will meet the exigencies of the situation. 

The lower animals, we have said, must adapt themselves 
to the environment as it stands. They cannot make it 
over to any large extent. Their adaptation is therefore 
passive. Man, on the other hand, can entirely reconstruct 
his environment and in this way create new incentives to 
further improvement. An environment constantly chang- 
ing under man's reconstructing and reorganizing ability 
presents a continuous succession of inducements to prog- 
ress. The marvellous irrigation systems by which deserts 



40 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

have been changed into fertile farms, and the transforma- 
tion of water-power into electrical machines that supply- 
distant cities with electricity are illustrations. 

We have illustrated human adaptation somewhat at 
length because of its importance in human efficiency. Man 
is prone to think that his higher intelligence makes him 
superior to this organic tendency. Yet he is no less sub- 
servient to it than are the lower animals. Adaptation is 
relentlessly exacting. We cannot escape it. The only 
method of control is the indirect one of planning the con- 
ditions to which adaptation shall be made. And it is here 
that man's intelligence has a chance to assert itself. The 
convicts, to whom reference has been made, adapted them- 
selves to two widely varying sets of conditions; and the 
results were so different as to exhibit in each convict two 
apparently antagonistic selves. Yet each manifestation 
of personality was true to itself and to the condition which 
drew it out. In helping others to develop, the effect of 
the conditions to which response is made is readily dis- 
cernible because of the objective point of view. The 
problem is quite different, however, when it is a ques- 
tion of training oneself. This difference arises from the 
stealthy way in which adaptation works. Evidently the 
intellect should play a more discriminative part in plan- 
ning the conditions to which human adaptation shall be 
made. We may therefore turn to the nature and method 
of thinking. 



CHAPTER II 
THINKING AND ACTING 

We have seen that the man who would be efficient should 
strive to control the external conditions to which, sooner 
or later, he will inevitably adapt himself. We will assume 
then that the external conditions have been well planned 
with reference to efficiency — that the stage is set, so to 
speak. The next step is the organization of effective 
mental habits, and foremost among these, perhaps, is the 
subtle process called thinking. Suppose we pause a mo- 
ment to correct a rather wide-spread error. 

Thinking is not a spontaneous process, like breathing. 
To be sure, ideas come into the mind and are succeeded 
by others that have some sort of connection with the first. 
But this is not necessarily thinking in the proper sense. 
Mere succession of things thought of — even related things 
— need not be thinking. There are many ways in which 
things and their ideas may be related. Some of these 
ways have significant meaning under given conditions, 
and others have not. Thinking implies seeing real rela- 
tions, not those that are fanciful or artificial; and these 
relations must lead somewhere. Some consequence should 
follow them. This consequence becomes a body of knowl- 
edge, perhaps a belief. Thinking also finds the reasons 
for a belief, if it is well grounded, and, if not, it exposes 
the insecure foundation. 

Evidently, then, mere association of ideas does not con- 
stitute thinking. The test is in the kind of associated 
ideas that we have. Ideas may have no more significance 
than is disclosed in the prattle of infants. A few illustra- 

41 



42 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tions will indicate the frequency of insignificant associa- 
tions incorrectly dignified as "thoughts." 

A "well-read" woman, for example, on hearing some 
one speak of the barren, degenerating lives of those in the 
slums, replied: "They should have good books to read, 
like those of Thackeray and George Eliot." And again, 
the manager of a large manufacturing plant on being told 
that the laborers in his mills were dragging out a joyless, 
hopeless existence, working ten hours a day six days in 
the week, said: "They don't know how to use their leisure 
time." 

The arguments of political parties, to illustrate failure 
to think from a different angle, are often insulting to even 
moderate intelligence; yet they are not resented. A well- 
chosen slogan is frequently sufficient. But slogans pre- 
suppose absence of thinking. They are designed to awaken 
certain ready-made associations in the voters; and they 
take the place of arguments. Obviously, politicians assume 
that the public can be fooled long enough to win the elec- 
tion, and the voters accept their judgment. They there- 
fore justify it. 

If these illustrations are fairly chosen, and they are of a 
type sufficiently frequent to be rather commonplace, it is 
clear that ideas brought into the mind through association 
may revolve in a very small circle and, consequently, never 
advance thought. As a matter of fact, thinking is largely 
controlled by inheritance, tradition, and environment, in- 
cluding early education and social pressure; and it is partly 
for this reason that experience, as usually accepted, exerts 
such a dominating influence. 

Merely living through a series of events, however, we 
have found does not give valid experience. Even activity 
— taking part in the events — does not make experience. 
Getting experience requires understanding causes and con- 
sequences — seeing connection between what precedes and 
that which follows. Change is meaningless transition un- 



THINKING AND ACTING 43 

less it is connected with its results. When change is trans- 
lated into cause and effect it is full of significance. We 
learn something. 

The character of experience — indeed, the very realiza- 
tion of any experience at all — is determined by the pro- 
portions in which habits of response, on the one hand, and 
variability, on the other, enter as constituents into our 
thought and actions. When response becomes habitual 
experience is at its minimum. The quantity of experience, 
again, is measured by the amount of conscious, attentive 
reaction which is opposed to habits of thought and beha- 
vior. So far as situations fail to be adequately met with 
habits, adaptation tends to become conscious, new, and, to 
the extent of the failure of habits, inventive and original. 
With man, at least, any break with mental habits tends 
to be educative. 

In the active affairs of life, however, experience usually 
settles what promises to be the efficient course to pursue. 
Here, as in other judgments, the test of the value of the 
decision is the success or failure of the plan in achieving 
the aims which are sought. Thinking is strictly an intel- 
lectual matter and in no sense a moral one. Its value 
depends wholly upon the accuracy of the process. The 
thinking of an Arsene Lupin in accomplishing his criminal 
purposes is as good as that of a Sherlock Holmes in thwart- 
ing them. The starting-point from which the thinking 
proceeds is itself a matter of experience and interpretation. 
The human being seems to be enclosed in a circle from 
which he cannot extricate himself. He begins with expe- 
rience, or with the interpretation and estimate of the 
views of others which is determined by his experience. 
This interpretation, again, rests upon personal judgment, 
"fundamental principles," which will be shared by others 
in proportion as these people have had similar experiences 
and have reasoned with like accuracy from the same start- 
ing-point. The circle within which one reasons will be 



44 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

large or small according as one's experience has been 
broad or limited, and in proportion to one's ability to dis- 
cover meaning in the experiences of others and to recon- 
struct them in terms of personal experience. Probably 
some are born with a nervous organization that accepts 
certain types of "fundamental principles" more readily 
than do others. Mystics and believers in occult phenom- 
ena, for example, we always have with us. In the same 
way some are born with a brain that responds to music 
and poetry. But inherited tendencies no more than indi- 
vidual experience establish universally valid principles. 

Since the ideas and beliefs with which we start will 
deflect even subsequently accurate thinking, it is of the 
utmost importance that they be subjected to the severest 
scrutiny at the beginning of an attempt to think out a 
question. From the moment of their acceptance, how- 
ever, it is a matter of the accuracy of the intellectual oper- 
ation by which new beliefs grow out of the facts and ideas 
accepted as a true starting-point. 

Throughout this mental growth the interpretation of 
experience plays a directing role, and it is in just this 
interpretation that the difference between great and medi- 
ocre men lies. There are two classes of discerning men, 
each important and effective in his way; those who origi- 
nate and those who, though unable to initiate in any large 
degree, are yet appreciative of the inventions of others. 
General George Meade seems to have been of the latter 
class. He was "not original in devising brilliant plans, 
but his clear understanding enabled him to discriminate 
between the plans of others." 1 Meade's success, consid- 
ered in connection with his lack of inventiveness, reminds 
one of a remark once made by Oliver Cromwell: "To be 
a Seeker," he said, "is to be of the best sect next to a 
Finder." The willingness and ability to admit in action 
the value of ideas presented by others reveals an intellec- 
1 The Story of the Civil War, by William R. Livermore, p. 495. 



THINKING AND ACTING 45 

tual freedom of no mean worth, even th'ough it may not 
represent the highest cast of mind; for one evidence of 
mental inferiority is the fear lest accepting the opinions of 
others will stamp one as weak. For the same reason, men 
of small mental calibre in positions of responsibility do 
not wish to have bigger men than themselves under them. 
They dread the contrast. One of the proofs of Lincoln's 
greatness was his willingness to take into his Cabinet men 
of the largest ability whom he could find, regardless of 
political affiliations; and he endured criticisms and innu- 
endoes from them which would have cut deeply into the 
self-esteem of a less able man. 

The least effective use of experience is probably exhibited 
by the literal man who has no sense of proportion, no sense 
of humor. No two situations are exactly alike, and the 
efficient man, other things being equal, is the one who can 
make distinctions between them and discover differences. 
There are, of course, those who are foredoomed to follow 
rules, and whatever efficiency these people possess lies in 
strict adherence to prescribed modes of action. These 
men cannot interpret experience. They can only follow 
it. Deviation from rules, of course, always involves risk, 
but he who never dares achieves nothing. In its best ex- 
pression life is a great adventure, or rather a continuous 
series of adventures, and the one who reads the meaning 
of events with clearest understanding makes discoveries 
or meets emergencies in ways wholly outside the ken of 
men of lesser attainments. 

Illustrations could easily be drawn from science, but 
perhaps military achievements afford the most striking 
instances. In the early period of Napoleon's victorious 
career, for example, after he had stormed the bridge of 
Lodi and forced the passage of the river, one of the 
Austrian generals exclaimed indignantly: "This beardless 
youth ought to have been beaten over and over again; for 
who ever saw such tactics ! The blockhead knows nothing 



46 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the rules of war. To-day he is in our rear, to-morrow 
on our flank, and the next day, again, on our front. Such 
gross violations of the established principles of war are 
insufferable." 1 

Sherman's march to the sea, to cite another instance of 
disregarding rules, would have been a stupendous blunder 
except that it succeeded. He should have been surrounded 
and his forces cut to pieces, according to the rules of 
strategy. But nothing of the sort happened. The plan 
"was forged almost as a dream in that eager and fertile 
workshop from which dreams came so thickly. But the 
point is that, conceived as a dream, it worked out with 
exactly reasoned care, so that in the end success attended 
almost every step of it. It was no dream to lead a hun- 
dred thousand men two hundred miles through a hostile 
country and bring them out in perfect fighting trim, with 
a confidence in their commander which had grown with 
every step they took." 2 

Grant, also, in cutting loose from his base of supplies, 
as he did in his attack on Vicksburg, disregarded a military 
principle which no one but a fool, or a genius, would ever 
think of violating. Lee, to cite a different sort of an 
illustration, fought the battle of Antietam with a river 
at his back, an inexcusable violation of the "rules." But 
he had interpreted events. He knew the man in front of 
him, and he was certain that if he lost the battle he could 
extricate himself before McClellan would counterattack 
with sufficient vigor to bring disaster. 

Many of Lee's moves, a recent reviewer says, "would be 
discredited because of the chances that he took. But he 
took them with his eyes open. He knew the art of war; 
knew what the odds against him were, and he was looking 

1 History of Napoleon Bonaparte, by John S. C. Abbott, vol. I, p. 96. A 
somewhat different wording of essentially the same thought is found in 
Napoleon, by Theodore A. Dodge, U. S. A., vol. I, p. 233. 

1 Union Portraits, by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 147. 



THINKING AND ACTING 47 

for a decision. He could not gain it in any other way." 
When, for example, Lee divided his forces in the face 
of the enemy at Chancellorsville and sent Jackson on 
his famous night-march along the plank road to attack 
Hooker's flank, he knew that he was violating one of the 
most elementary rules of strategy. And Falkenhayn has 
recently repeated this "blunder," with amazing success. 
At the battle of Hermannstadt, although being attacked 
heavily in front, Falkenhayn nevertheless detached a con- 
siderable force from his right wing and sent it by a wide 
detour to fall upon the Roumanian rear. This flanking 
force had to traverse a wild, mountainous country without 
Jackson's plank road, and this made all the more glaring 
the violation of the rule that a force must not be divided 
in the face of the enemy. The only excuse for Falkenhayn's 
conduct was that it succeeded. The detached force sat 
down in Red Tower Pass directly astride the Roumanian 
line of retreat and supplies, and the newly acquired army 
of the Allies was thrown into hopeless disorder in its mad 
struggle to escape from the encircling fire of guns. 

Violation of rules in the cases of which we have been 
speaking was not an exhibition of erratic thinking. These 
military geniuses saw and read the markings of strata of 
experience lying below the level of prescribed conduct; and 
what they read suggested actions and plans outside the 
field of intellectual vision of the less endowed. To know 
when to disregard rules is distinctive. Suggestions imply 
a capacity to be influenced, and some minds are imper- 
vious to suggestions that are not hammered in by concus- 
sion. The intellectually sensitive do not require shocks. 
The story of Newton and the falling apple is a historical 
myth but psychologically it is true. Some such story 
had to be invented because it represents the way in which 
a great mind acts. Things are continually happening that 
are loaded with suggestive meanings, but only the intel- 
lectually prepared can interpret them. Getting experience 



48 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

is not merely living and acting. It is testing the effect of 
actions. We do something and then watch the result. 
But even close observation of the action and consequent 
reaction may not reveal the meaning of the experience. 
Many factors are involved which do not readily disclose 
themselves to the superficially observant person. 

Every experience is a scientific experiment reduced to 
its lowest terms. If we do not plan the conditions of an 
experience as deliberately as of an experiment, the contrib- 
uting factors must be isolated quite as carefully, that the 
part which each plays in the final outcome may be cor- 
rectly determined. Experience is always prospective. It 
looks toward the future and furnishes principles of be- 
havior. These principles are rules of action. They must 
be followed by people of mediocre attainments, and they 
represent efficiency up to a certain point — to the limit of 
mechanical efficiency. But to a certain few the trying 
out and testing of the behavior of men and things, with 
reference to their response to our actions upon them, yield 
a flood of suggestions regarding the meaning of the reac- 
tions; and these meanings involve the relation between the 
actions of the person who is seeking experience and the 
responses — behavior — of the other persons and things 
which he is trying in some way to influence or control. 
Interpretation of the way in which things and people be- 
have when we try to do something to them — to alter them 
or their actions — and knowledge of the reasons of this 
behavior — discernment of the relations between our ac- 
tions and their reactions — is experience. The military 
geniuses of whom we have spoken saw deeper meanings 
than rules express, and this was due to their penetrating 
vision and interpretation of what they saw. 

The sagacity of some men is a constant source of amaze- 
ment to those of moderate mental fertility. Wisdom, 
however, is not a miraculous product. It comes, just as 
do the less striking thoughts, through association of ideas. 
The mind of the genius works in exactly the same way as 



THINKING AND ACTING 49 

that of a plodder. The difference is that the genius sees 
more meanings than others, and he sees them more quickly. 
Suggestions are fertile with him; but one prerequisite of 
mental fertility is well-ordered, adequate knowledge. The 
need of abundant knowledge is evident because it is the 
source of meanings by which the world's confusion may 
be interpreted. But this knowledge must be organized 
so that its variety may not prevent concentration of avail- 
able portions upon a definite problem. Unorganized knowl- 
edge is only wayward information, unfitted for application 
because incapable of being combined into a single impulse 
leading toward a definite conclusion. A man cannot be 
wise on nothing, and no amount of information need make 
him wise. Malthus' Essay on Population would have left 
Darwin and Wallace floating on the surface of conventional 
biological beliefs had they not been loaded with intellectual 
high explosives. 

Yet men of genius are more conservative than is some- 
times thought. All of their ideas do not flower. They 
pull up many and throw them away. Kepler is a striking 
illustration of the mistake in assuming that genius has an 
unerring method of divining truth. His contributions to 
our knowledge of the orbits and motions of planetary 
masses are so fundamental that one might easily think 
him the possessor of a special method or "faculty" of dis- 
covering truth. But he had many "strange views" and 
fell into numerous errors. All of his ability would have 
availed him nothing had he not constantly maintained 
the attitude of the trier, the tester, the experimenter. He 
failed repeatedly and his hypotheses were often dreams of 
a wayward moment, but he was relentless in his experi- 
mental criticism of them. Experience with him meant 
experimenting, as it always must if it is to contribute con- 
clusions of value. Who would be willing to assert that 
y Kepler's "chimerical notions" were not, after all, stages 
in his progress toward truth? 

"In all probability the errors of the great mind," says 



50 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Jevons, "exceed in number those of the less vigorous one. 
Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth 
are among the first requisites of discovery; but the errone- 
ous guesses must be many times as numerous as those 
which prove well founded. . . . The truest theories in- 
volve suppositions which are inconceivable, and no limit 
can really be placed to the freedom of hypothesis." * Fara- 
day, again, in a paper on ray- vibrations says: "I think it 
likely that I have made many mistakes in the preceding 
pages, for even to myself my ideas appear only as the 
shadow of a speculation, or as one of those impressions on 
the mind which are allowable for a time as guides to 
thought and research." 2 "The world little knows," con- 
tinues Faraday, elsewhere, in the same vein, "how many 
of the thoughts and theories which have passed through 
the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in 
silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse 
examination; that in the most successful instances not a 
tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the pre- 
liminary conclusions, have been realized." And it is the 
same with those working in the more practical field of in- 
vention. Edison, for example, once remarked that he 
could say without exaggeration that he had constructed 
three thousand different theories with regard to the elec- 
tric light, "each of them reasonable and apparently likely 
to be true." Yet only in two cases did his experiments 
prove the truth of his theory. 3 

Theories do not reveal their own truth or falsity. The 
meaning of the facts from which they follow must be 
understood, and here the critical discrimination and sagac- 
ity of the experimenter is tested. Horace G. Hutchinson 
gives an amusing illustration of the view commonly held 
that "facts" carry their own light, which illumines them 
so brightly that their significance is apparent to all. 

1 The Principles of Science, by W. Stanley Jevons, p. 577. 

* Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, p. 372. 

* George Parsons Lathrop, Harper's Monthly, vol. 80, p. 425. 



THINKING AND ACTING 51 

"Shortly after the publication of the Origin of Species, 
Mr. Lowe" [the Chancellor of the Exchequer] "and Mr. 
Busk" [President of the College of Surgeons] "were at 
High Elms" [visiting Sir John Lubbock]. "On Saturday- 
evening Mrs. Lowe was between young Lubbock and Mr. 
Busk, and the conversation turned on the great book. 
Mrs. Lowe asked Mr. Busk 'just to explain' why one germ 
should develop into a man and another into a kangaroo. 
He suggested that she should read the book, and so she 
took it up-stairs. Next day she sat in the drawing-room 
with it, and finished it about 4.30, shutting it up with a clap 
and saying: 'Well, I don't see much in your Mr. Darwin 
after all; if I had had his facts I should have come to the 
same conclusion myself. ,,,l 

Since the method by which geniuses solve their problems 
is the same as that used by the ordinary man in meeting 
the difficulties of his business or profession, it is worth 
while to examine the process briefly. 

First of all, it should be observed that if everything ran 
smoothly there would be no thinking. Like everything 
else, thinking requires a cause, which in this instance is 
trouble. Doubt, perplexity, uncertainty, an obstacle in 
the way of what we want to do — all are different names 
for troubles of one sort or another that interfere with our 
activities, physical or mental. So long as an automobile 
is in perfect running order the driver is not concerned with 
its mechanism. But let it go dead, with seventy-five 
miles to dinner and the nearest garage, and he is keenly 
interested in the cause of the trouble. 

The recognition of trouble, however, either in something 
that we are trying to do or in finding the explanation of a 
problem is only the incentive to thinking. The cause of 
the difficulty must be understood before a remedy or a 
solution can be found, and here we have the second factor 
in thinking. In certain respects this is the most difficult 
part of the reasoning process, because most events are 

1 Life of Sir John Lubbock, by Horace G. Hutchinson, vol. I., pp. 50-51. 



52 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

exceedingly complex, and the associated incidental factors 
are so intertwined with the essential elements that it is 
not easy to separate the essential from the accidental. 
Science has a way of meeting this perplexity. Experiments 
are arranged in which one possible cause after another is 
eliminated, and others, perhaps, exaggerated. In this 
way, by the process of elimination, the cause of a phenom- 
enon is ascertained. 

Certain peculiarities of electricity, for example, must 
have been observed in ancient times, in lightning, in the 
aurora borealis, in loadstone, and in certain other sub- 
stances. In some of these cases the activity was too in- 
tense and rapid. In others it was too feeble and obscure. 
Machines and experiments were needed to produce a con- 
tinuous supply of electricity of such an intensity as would 
make it possible to see and test what actually happened. 
From early times, also, it has been noticed that the tides 
vary with the phases of the moon. Some connection be- 
tween these phenomena was assumed, but there was no 
accurate knowledge of the relation until Newton announced 
the law of gravitation. Mere observation is likely to be 
misleading. It would never have shown, for example, 
that air may exist as a liquid and as a solid. 

In many matters, however, as in business and social 
problems, experimentation is not easy, and frequently it is 
impossible. Yet these questions are no less complex and 
involved than the scientific problems to which we have 
referred. In the former as well as in the latter the diffi- 
culty or obstruction in the way of successful progress in 
thought and action must be located and denned. The 
ledger does not show the profits which the business condi- 
tions lead one to expect. What is the explanation? Is 
the cause to be found in the internal organization, or lack 
of organization, or should it be sought among the sales- 
men? The cause and remedy of political corruption, to 
cite another instance, has long been a matter of contro- 



THINKING AND ACTING 53 

versy. The ramifications of this disease of the body poli- 
tic are so extensive that many other social disturbances 
spring from it. As this is being written there are indica- 
tions that we are soon to try a tremendously big experi- 
ment — the elimination of the saloons. Whatever one's 
ideas may be regarding "personal liberty" and "legislat- 
ing men good," it must be admitted that this is the scien- 
tific method of locating the cause of the trouble. 

This experiment of dispensing with saloons illustrates 
what is usually called the third step in reasoning — sugges- 
tions for remedying the difficulty. As a matter of fact, 
this is not the usual order of the factors in the process of 
thinking. Suggestions commonly arise before the difficulty 
is defined. The wise man, however, suspends judgment, 
delays acting on suggestions, until the cause of the trouble 
has been located. Unfortunately, however, wise men are 
rare, and consequently suggestions are acted upon hastily 
and impulsively before the difficulty has been carefully 
diagnosed and the cause located. It is the trial-and-error 
method on the animal level — the hit-or-miss method. Yet 
it is not the way of men who have realized on their ability. 
Napoleon, for example, once said: "If I appear to be always 
ready to reply to everything, it is because, before under- 
taking anything, I have meditated for a long time — I have 
foreseen what might happen. It is not a spirit which 
suddenly reveals to me what I have to say or do in a cir- 
cumstance unexpected by others — it is reflection, medita- 
tion." l Evidently Napoleon measures up well to the 
type of which H. G. Wells was thinking when he made Mr. 
Britling say: "Will there ever be a man whose thoughts 
are quick and his acts slow?" 

One of the most charming illustrations of suspended 
judgment and sensitiveness to suggestion — ability to dis- 
cover meaning in commonplace events — is the means by 
which James Bradley explained the apparent movements 

1 Napoleon at Work, by Colonel Vacbie, translated by G. F. Lees, p. 7. 



54 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the stars about which he had long been puzzled. "One 
day when Bradley was out sailing he happened to remark 
that every time the boat was laid on a different tack the 
vane at the top of the boat's mast shifted a little, as if 
there had been a slight change in the direction of the 
wind. After he had noticed this three or four times he 
made a remark to the sailors to the effect that it was very 
strange the wind should always happen to change just at 
the moment when the boat was going about. The sailors, 
however, said there had been no change in the wind, but 
that the alteration in the vane was due to the fact that the 
boat's course had been altered. In fact, the position of 
the vane was determined both by the course of the boat 
and the direction of the wind, and if either of these were 
altered there would be a corresponding change in the 
direction of the vane. This meant, of course, that the 
observer in the boat which was moving along would feel 
the wind coming from a point different from that in which 
the wind appeared to be blowing when the boat was at 
rest, or when it was sailing in some different direction. 
Bradley's sagacity saw in this observation the clew to the 
difficulty which had so long troubled him. . . . He argued 
that as light can only travel with a certain speed, it may 
in a measure be regarded like the wind, which he noticed 
in the boat. If the observer were at rest, that is to say, 
if the earth were a stationary object, the direction in 
which the light actually does come would be different 
from that in which it appears to come when the earth is 
in motion. . . . Provided with this suggestion, he ex- 
plained the apparent movements of the stars by the prin- 
ciple known as the 'aberration of light."' l This incident 
in the life of Bradley is comparable in every way to the 
mythical story of Newton and the apple, which scientists 
have been so eager to deny lest it remove some of the gloss 
from scientific thinking. As a matter of fact, reasoning 
1 Great Astronomers, by Sir Robert S. Ball, London, 1907, pp. 194-196. 



THINKING AND ACTING 55 

about scientific problems is the same as that which is con- 
cerned with the day's work. Discovering the essential 
element in a bit of experience, and seeing its meaning in 
relation to the more important questions that trouble one, 
is thinking. 

Failure to suspend judgment until the essential factors 
are discovered, and to persevere in the investigation until 
they are found, is the explanation of many blunders in 
business and in social reform. Ninety per cent of the 
business ventures are said to be failures, and this is the 
chief cause. Suspended judgment is not a popular state 
of mind. Men like to decide and act. An unsettled state 
of mind is not pleasant. 

The habit of suspending judgment, therefore, is not 
easily acquired, and there is always a strong tendency to 
interpret facts so as to make them fit and justify our be- 
liefs. Before Kepler's day, for example, planets were as- 
sumed to move in circles. If one were found that did not 
conform to this "law," it was made to agree by saying 
that the circle in which the planet moved described an- 
other circle. Tycho, again, vigorously opposed the Coper- 
nican theory, and, by the irony of human psychology, 
Kepler used Tycho's own observations to add to the proof 
of the new idea which the master observer had so stoutly 
denied. And the facts which Owen had patiently col- 
lected, to cite another instance, and so serenely interpreted 
in support of his erroneous belief, were utilized by Darwin 
in his epoch-making generalization regarding the origin 
of species. "We all believe many things which we have 
no good ground for believing," Bertrand Russell has said, 1 
"because, subconsciously, our nature craves certain kinds 
of action which these beliefs would render reasonable if 
they were true." 

When Fulton presented his plans of a submarine boat 
to the British Government — to continue our illustrations of 
1 Why Men Fight, pp. 5/. 



56 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the tendency to hold to fixed opinions — the ministry ap- 
pointed a commission of five men to examine the matter. 
So unwilling, however, were the members of the commis- 
sion to suspend judgment and investigate — so sure were 
they of the worthlessness of Fulton's invention — that, 
after many weeks of delay, they gave an adverse report 
without even asking Fulton to explain his plans and with- 
out having any account before them of the tests and ex- 
periments which he made. The submarine boat referred 
to in the report was large enough to carry eight men with 
provisions for twenty days. While under water a reser- 
voir supplied the eight men with air for eight hours; and 
Fulton himself with three companions had remained under 
water for one hour. 

We are accustomed to say that such things happened a 
long time ago, and to think that they could not occur now, 
but a very recent event comparable in all essential respects 
to the Fulton incident is the treatment which Langley re- 
ceived while working on the aeroplane. The first achieve- 
ments of the "flying-machine" brought fulsome praise — 
as success usually does — and a government grant of fifty 
thousand dollars was easily obtained for the continuance 
of the experiments. Then difficulties appeared, chiefly 
with the engine, since the automobile industry had not 
yet forced its perfection. The preliminary grant was soon 
exhausted and more money could not easily be obtained 
to carry on the ludicrous experiments of a science crank. 
The unscientific editors of science notes in newspapers 
began to jeer, and "Langley's Folly" was the joke of 
small-calibered congressmen. Langley's vindication came, 
however, in the spring of 1914, when Glenn Curtis wiped 
the dust from the exhibit of insanity and made the "Folly" 
fly. We now know that Langley discovered the essential 
principle of aeroplanes, and with a little more financial 
aid he would have made the United States Government, 
instead of private individuals, the ruler of the air. And 
his death was hastened by a broken heart because of the 



THINKING AND ACTING 57 

ridicule heaped upon him. Now that he is gone, his name 
is enrolled among the memories of the throng who gave 
their lives to science and died unappreciated. 

It would seem from the treatment of the men whom 
we have named, and who are typical of a long list of those 
who offered something new, as though the incident reported 
of an Italian town during the Middle Ages were represen- 
tative of human experience: "The citizens of a certain 
town — Siena seems to be meant — had once an officer in 
their service who had freed them from foreign aggression; 
daily they took counsel how to recompense him, and con- 
cluded that no reward in their power was great enough 
not even if they made him lord of their city. At last one 
of them arose and said: 'Let us kill him, and then worship 
him as our patron saint.' And so they did." l Evidently, 
a recent writer in the Atlantic Monthly was right when he 
said that "Dead radicals are honored, not because they 
were radicals, but because they are dead." 2 

"The undisciplined mind," says Dewey, speaking of sus- 
pended judgment, "is averse to suspense and intellectual 
hesitation; it is prone to assertion. It likes things undis- 
turbed, settled, and treats them as such without due war- 
rant. Familiarity, common repute, and congeniality to 
desire are readily made measuring rods of truth. Igno- 
rance gives way to opinionated and current error — a 
greater foe to learning than ignorance itself. . . . Our 
predilection for premature acceptance and assertion, our 
aversion to suspended judgment, are signs that we tend 
naturally to short-cut the process of testing. We are sat- 
isfied with superficial and immediate short-visioned appli- 
cations. If these work with moderate satisfactoriness, we 
are content to suppose that our assumptions have been 
confirmed." 3 Yet delay, pending inquiry and investiga- 
tion, is the scientific method, and it is the only dependable 

1 Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, by Jacob Burckhardt, p. 23. 

2 Seymour Deming, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 113, p. 587. 
8 Democracy and Education, by John Dewey, p. 222. 



58 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

plan of action. It is the essence of critical thinking. 
Following this plan, the managers of one of the most suc- 
cessful chains of restaurants in large cities are said never 
to decide upon a new location without having the people 
who pass proposed locations counted at noon and evening 
for a number of days. In this way one source of error is 
eliminated, and the business problem then resolves itself 
into furnishing as good a meal for the money as is offered 
by other restaurants in the vicinity. 

Usually problems are not so simple as this business ques- 
tion, and the suggestions looking toward their solution 
must come through the use of a trained and controlled 
imagination; and in this connection some reflections of 
Faraday are interesting. He could not rid himself of the 
conviction that gravity is connected with other forces of 
nature. "Gravity — " he said, "surely this force must be 
capable of an experimental relation to electricity, magnet- 
ism, and the other forces, so as to bind it up with them in 
reciprocal action and equivalent effect." He was con- 
vinced that as two bodies approach one another, electricity 
is developed in each. Then, in a moment of hesitation 
and doubt, if not discouragement, he wrote in his labora- 
tory notes: "All this is a dream. Still, examine it by a 
few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, 
if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such 
things as these, experiment is the best test of such consis- 
tency." So he continued his efforts to ascertain the facts, 
but many difficult and tedious experiments yielded noth- 
ing conclusive. At this point, feeling that he had done 
all that he could without time for reflection, he wrote: 
"Here end my experiments for the present. The results 
are negative; they do not shake my strong feeling of the 
existence of a relation between gravity and electricity, 
though they give no proof that such a relation exists." 

Ten years later he returned to these experiments, hav- 
ing been working upon other problems during the mean- 



THINKING AND ACTING 59 

time. "Let us encourage ourselves by a little more 
imagination prior to experiment," he wrote in his notes as 
a sort of personal censor. "And then he reflects upon the 
infinity of actions in nature, in which the mutual relations 
of electricity and gravity would come into play; he pic- 
tures to himself the planets and the comets charging them- 
selves as they approach the sun; cascades, rain, rising 
vapor, circulating currents of the atmosphere, the fumes 
of a volcano, the smoke in a chimney, become so many 
electrical machines; for a moment his reveries have the 
vividness of fact, and he sums up rapidly the consequences 
of his great but imaginary theory; an entirely new mode 
of exciting heat or electricity, an entirely new relation of 
the natural forces, an analysis of gravitation, and a jus- 
tification of the conservation of force." 1 Then, perhaps 
in a moment of exultation, he wrote: "I think we must 
have been dull and blind not to have suspected some such 
results." But he did not allow his imagination to run 
rampant. "Let the imagination go, guarding it by judg- 
ment and principle, holding it in and directing it by ex- 
periment." When all was done and experiments had 
been cleverly contrived to eliminate the influence of the 
earth's magnetism by devices that only his consummate 
skill could suggest, the results were inconclusive. "The 
experiments," he wrote at the end, "were well made, but 
the results are negative. I cannot, however, accept them 
as final." 

Faraday's reflections during this period of experimenta- 
tion have been quoted at some length, because it is doubt- 
ful whether a better illustration of the correct method of 
thinking can be found — clear recognition of the difficulty, 
accurate definition of the problem, getting the facts, sug- 
gestions — the free but guided play of the imagination, 

1 The Principles of Science, by W. Stanley Jevons, London, iooo, pp. 590 /. 
See also Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity, vol. 3, 14th 
series, p. 161. 



60 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

with its resulting hypothesis— suspended judgment, and 
constant attempt at verification or refutation. And there 
is no other method of thinking, whether it be in science or 
in the affairs of every-day life. 

Faraday's scientific imagination, keenly sensitive to the 
meaning of his observations, guessed more accurately than 
the methods of experimentation in his day could demon- 
strate; for, to take a wide leap in time, Professor Nipher, 
of Washington University, has just proved that a relation 
does exist between gravitation and electrical action. The 
results of his experiments "seem to indicate clearly that 
gravitational attraction between masses of matter depends 
upon their electrical potential due to electrical charges 
upon them.' , l It has long been known that it is im- 
possible to account for the motion of Venus and Mercury 
by Newton's law. Arbitrary terms, the meaning of which 
no one understood, had to be introduced into the equa- 
tion, and Professor Nipher's work shows that what has 
been called the Newton gravitation constant is not a con- 
stant. Its value depends upon the electrical condition of 
the bodies. 

Returning to the method of thinking, the productive, 
creative imagination is the mind playing around facts; and 
the "little more imagination" with which Faraday thought 
"to encourage" himself, "prior to experiment" was his 
way of expressing his search for a hypothesis which would 
stand the test of facts and account for the scientific dif- 
ficulties which he had discovered. Kepler's discovery, 
again, that the orbits of the planets are ellipses was a bril- 
liant guess, but his guess was based on facts — observations 
— accumulated by Tycho. Upon these facts his imagina- 
tion played, and to the end of his life he was ignorant of 
any reason why planets should move in such curves. 

The way in which a trained imagination uses facts to 

1 Science, vol. 46, pp. 293 /. Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. 
Louis, vol. 23, no. 5. 



THINKING AND ACTING 61 

discover truths is shown in Halley's study of comets. He 
learned that a comet had been observed at intervals of 
seventy-five or seventy-six years, and his disciplined 
imagination leaped to the conclusion that comets are not 
chance visitors to the solar system, portending disaster, as 
had previously been thought. These several visitors, he 
said, are one and the same comet. So he proceeded to 
prophesy, but always on the basis of facts. The disturb- 
ance caused by the attraction of planets had to be com- 
puted. The result of these disturbing influences is that 
the comet does not describe the simple ellipse that it would 
if the sun were the only controlling force. Taking all 
known influences into consideration, Halley found that 
his comet should reappear at the close of the year 1758 or 
the beginning of 1759. On Christmas day, 1758, his 
hypothesis was verified by the reappearance of the ex- 
pected comet, which passed through its nearest point to 
the sun in March, 1759. It will be recalled by many that 
this comet visited us again in 19 10, amazingly near sched- 
ule time, considering its long journey and the number of 
alluring attractions that it encountered in its course. It 
missed the predicted time by two and seven-tenth days. 

To be sure, matters of every-day life cannot be subjected 
to the same rigorous examination as can scientific questions, 
but the methods and precautions are the same. The dif- 
ference lies rather in the exactness of the method as it may 
be applied in the laboratory. Perhaps, after all, it is the 
mental attitude that counts most. Conviction that mere 
observation is not likely to discover the meaning of a 
complex situation, ability to hold the judgment in sus- 
pense until the matter has been fully investigated, will go 
far toward reducing errors of opinion and decision. 

Let us now consider some of the obstacles to correct 
thinking which arise out of the fact that thinkers are 
human beings with the characteristics that have come to 
them through the process of evolution. We have seen that 



62 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the first thing to do in denning a problem after recogniz- 
ing the difficulty is to find out the facts. It has already 
been shown by illustrative examples that hypotheses — the 
assumed cause of something that has happened — to be 
worth anything must rest upon facts; but the sin of hasty 
conclusions is so common in the thinking of every-day life 
that the matter deserves further consideration. 

When King Charles asked the Royal Society to explain 
the curious "observation" that a live fish placed in a 
bucket of water does not increase the weight of the bucket 
and its contents, the members of the Royal Society wisely 
began by investigating the question of fact. Again, when 
the objectors to the Copernican theory said that if the 
earth were moving, a stone dropped from the top of a 
high tower would be left behind, just as is the case with 
a stone dropped from the masthead of a moving ship, the 
Copernicans should first have tested the latter part of the 
statement of fact; and had they used proper precautions 
in the experiment they would have shown that, barring 
the effect of air-currents, the statement is untrue. As 
regards the first part of the objection, it may be asking 
too much to have expected at that time the rigorous care 
and accurate measurements which would have been needed 
to demonstrate experimentally, as Benzenberg did later, 
that a stone dropped into a deep well is actually deflected 
slightly toward the east. 

To cite an instance from daily life of the importance of 
getting facts, the war has forced business men to face cer- 
tain problems that existed for them before the war but 
which they did not see until compelled to do so by hav- 
ing their supply of raw material cut off. In despair, they 
turned to the men who know — to the scientists in those 
fields ; and then, to their amazement, they learned not only 
that this raw material is available, either in the United 
States or in some near-by neutral country, but, in addition, 
that the commodity from the new source is not only as 



THINKING AND ACTING 63 

good or better but also cheaper than that which they had 
previously imported from a greater distance. They did 
not have the facts. Before the necessity was forced upon 
them the manufacturers did not believe that uncommer- 
cial scientists could give business men advice. It is an- 
other illustration of the psychological principle of conserva- 
tism and habit — the tendency to minimum effort. 

Interpreting facts, however, is much harder than col- 
lecting them. Indeed, the question of whether there are 
any facts worth getting, whether everything bearing on 
the matter is not already known, is one test of mental 
acumen. Only to the intelligent do problems present 
themselves. To the simple everything is simple. An 
environment may be rich in its possibilities for experience, 
yet yield nothing. It requires more than paying ore to 
produce gold. Many a prospector has failed to read the 
signs. In thinking, this mental blindness is caused by in- 
ability to see a problem. Facts do not exist for those to 
whom they have no significance; and when facts have no 
meaning there is no problem. It is said that we interpret 
new ideas by means of what we already know; and this is 
so true that the new is often accepted only to an extent 
that does not disturb the old ideas. Finding it necessary 
to retreat man makes a "strategic withdrawal," and then 
deceives himself by producing mental smoke that obscures 
the issue. This is one way — not uncommon — of inter- 
preting the new in the light of the old. 

When Torricelli, for example, discredited the Aristotelian 
dictum that nature abhors a vacuum, by showing that 
water would rise more than thirty-three feet in a pump, 
and mercury only about thirty inches in a glass tube, his 
opponents did not abandon their discredited belief. They 
modified it sufficiently to take in the facts observed by 
Torricelli. Nature, they said, abhors a vacuum up to a 
certain point but no further. Analogous cases are ob- 
served to-day in such expressions as "Socialism is good 



64 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

up to a certain point"; and, again, "A man's will is gov- 
erned and determined by law to a certain point, and then 
freedom of choice occurs." Those who use this last bro- 
mide are forced to admit the application of the law of 
causality "up to a certain point" in order to find a fulcrum 
for their moral lever. If the will were wholly unresponsive 
to causes, Sunday-schools, social settlements, and all at- 
tempts to improve children and adults by bettering their 
environment would be useless, because the moral ideas 
and habits could not be depended upon to influence action. 
Such a will would be anarchistic. Consequently, some 
effect must be admitted. But, as with the Aristotelians 
in the controversy with Torricelli and the pump, the ad- 
mission must not go so far as to jeopardize the original 
belief. 

This unwillingness to discard a cherished belief springs 
in part from a strong human impulse to estimate the truth 
of new ideas by the system of thoughts which one has 
accepted in large measure unconsciously. A ready-made 
classification of ideas preserves consistency by forbidding 
change. With such a classification all that is necessary is 
to fit it on to the new discovery, and then no violence is 
done to the harmony of one's system of thoughts. So, 
when fossils were first found they were explained, among 
other ways, as models made by the Creator before he had 
fully decided upon the best form in which to create the 
various animals. 

When anaesthetics were discovered, to illustrate further, 
a storm of protest arose against their use. Again the 
stock ideas prevailed. Pain was God-given, it was said, 
and any attempt to alleviate it was an effort to thwart 
his will. But a Scotch physician, Doctor James Simpson, 
who knew something about psychology as well as medi- 
cine, after long and bitter opposition, brought the startling 
innovation into harmony with the prevailing system of 
ideas by writing a pamphlet in which he said: "My oppo- 



THINKING AND ACTING 65 

nents forget the twenty-first verse of the second chapter 
of Genesis. It is the record of the first surgical operation 
ever performed, and that text proves that the Maker of 
the universe, before he took the rib from Adam's side for 
the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon 
Adam." This recognition of the way in which the human 
mind acts won the day for anaesthetics. 

From one point of view facts may be roughly divided 
into two classes: First, those which have a purely objective 
aspect, i. e., those unattended by personal bias, as facts of 
electricity and gravitation to-day; and, second, those that 
oppose opinions and beliefs held dear. Interpretation of 
the first is difficult because of the many intricate relations 
and connections. 

Difficult, however, as it is to interpret facts which are 
unattended by personal bias, it is much harder, indeed, all 
but impossible, to understand those which oppose our cher- 
ished convictions. The mind of man is like a poorly made 
mirror. It distorts the facts that it reflects. Opinions 
and beliefs are true because we have long been surrounded 
by them. They are the views of "our set." "The vast 
majority of persons of our race," Francis Gal ton once said, 1 
" have a natural tendency to shrink from the responsibility 
of standing and acting alone; they exalt the vox populi, 
even when they know it to be the utterance of a mob of 
nobodies, into the vox Dei, and they are willing slaves to 
tradition, authority, and custom. The intellectual defi- 
ciencies corresponding to these moral flaws are shown by 
the rareness of force and original thought as compared 
with the frequency and readiness with which men accept 
the opinions of those in authority as binding on their 
judgment. . . . Fickleness of national character is prin- 
cipally due to the several members of the nation exercising 
no independent judgment, but allowing themselves to be 
led hither and thither by the successive journalists, orators, 

1 Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 69, 81. 



66 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

and sentimentalists who happen for the time to have the 
chance of directing them." One does not need to go 
beyond one's own circle of acquaintances for illustrative 
examples; and this gregarious thinking, which seeks to 
maintain views rather than to ascertain the truth, produces 
adventitious tendencies that throw an illuminating side- 
light upon several phases of human behavior. 

It has long been known, for example, that any statement, 
however meaningless, acquires significance if repeated 
often enough. So it is with ideas. They appear true by 
long association with them. Then, of course, they are 
vigorously maintained. It is indeed a curious fact of 
human psychology that the more unanswerable the argu- 
ments the more prone the vanquished is to deny them. 
"So long as an element of doubt is admissible," says 
Gotch in his review of the scientific method, "an opponent 
will suffer the inference to be drawn without a violent out- 
burst; but when the inference is logically certain and the 
opponent is forced to admit his error or stultify himself, 
he may, it is true, maintain a magnanimous silence, but 
generally he fails to do so; he becomes greatly perturbed, 
and denies everything, even the most demonstrable facts. 
There is no greater incentive to unreasonable anger than 
the conviction that our position has been shown to be 
erroneous, and that in our inmost souls we are fully con- 
scious of its hopeless character." * 

One of the striking effects of fixed opinions is that they 
prevent us not merely from accepting arguments in oppo- 
sition, but also from understanding these opposing argu- 
ments — and this is far more serious. We cannot follow a 
line of reasoning which is antagonistic to a strong emo- 
tional prejudice. Cuvier, unable to see the meaning of 
fossils, and Owen laboriously gathering arguments for 
Darwin without understanding them, are illustrations. 
When Sumner, to illustrate further, was asked whether he 
1 Lectures on the Method of Science, Oxford, 1906, edited by T. B. Strong. 



THINKING AND ACTING 67 

had ever looked at the other side of slavery, he replied, 
"There is no other side." Yet we all know to-day that 
the South believed there was an economic side, recogni- 
tion of which might have saved the losses and horrors of 
the Civil War. 

If we ask for the cause of fixed opinions we come upon 
an interesting characteristic of human psychology which 
largely determines the course of thoughts and actions. 
The related experiences of an individual become organized 
into a system of ideas that decide his outlook and opinions 
in matters upon which the experiences have any bearing. 
These systems of thought have been called mental com- 
plexes. Enthusiasts display them in their hobbies, and 
here they are often valuable because they afford relief from 
the strain of work. Enthusiasm for golf is an illustration. 
The golf complex makes everything relating to the game 
interesting and the player's thoughts are easily turned in 
that direction. But, besides rendering the service of relief 
from work, mental complexes are the cause of blind adhe- 
sion to parties and "bias" toward all questions to which 
the systems of thought apply. Usually more or less emo- 
tion is intermingled in these complexes, and when they 
are emotionally saturated they become sentiments. Then 
the all but irresistible control of the complex is as unas- 
sailable as adamant. 

These mental complexes determine the course of thoughts 
and forbid logical thinking. Evidence is not weighed im- 
partially. They are the more disastrous to accurate rea- 
soning because the individual is not aware that he has 
them. The belief that men generally know why they 
hold certain opinions is erroneous. The mental bias set- 
tles the line that thoughts shall take. Thinking is often 
a rearrangement of our prejudices. Man, however, craves 
consistency, so the usual procedure is first to come to an 
opinion, and then to find "reasons" for holding it. We 
make believe that we may believe. Gladstone, according 



68 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

to Frederick York Powell, is a good illustration. Speaking 
of his "pig controversy" with Huxley, Mr. Powell, said: 
"Gladstone was never really honest with his own mind. 
He meant to be honest, but ... he was a terrific self- 
deceiver." l 

Mental complexes — organized systems of thoughts — we 
must have. We cannot escape them and perhaps it is 
best that we should not. But efficient thinking requires 
that they be kept clear of emotional obscurity. If one 
were to ask oneself for the reasons for one's opinions, in a 
large majority of cases it would be impossible to find a 
convincing answer. Mental complexes unconsciously ac- 
quired and colored by personal emotions have established 
the belief. Yet to estimate the worth of arguments it is 
necessary that they be viewed objectively. Thoughts 
should be kept free from confusing alliances with self- 
interests and desires — free to move upon one another and 
make new combinations. And, above all, a man must 
know that he has these organized systems of thoughts, 
many of which are suffused with emotions. He who be- 
lieves himself free from them is hopeless as a thinker. 

Since, as we have said, the mind demands at least super- 
ficial consistency, and since no one is wholly good or 
wholly bad, two opposing systems of ideas are commonly 
held apart and not allowed to conflict. Illustrations are 
more common than one could wish. It is a familiar fact, 
for instance, that people who would indignantly deny that 
they are dishonest will rob the government, railroads, or 
stockholders; but they would not swindle individuals. 
Office-holders and politicians who accept graft in the form 
of "favors" belong to this group; and the recent case of 
an American woman "of high moral ideals," who had done 
heroic, self-sacrificing work among the wounded soldiers 
of France, swindling the government in custom duties on 
her return to this country is a pathetic instance which 
1 Memories, by Edward Clodd, p. 129. 



THINKING AND ACTING 69 

can be duplicated many times during the year from the 
daily press. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of 
the present day is that of those business men who give 
generously to the poor and to the service of the nation, 
yet take advantage of war conditions to rob the people 
collectively by hoarding and overcharging. Preventing 
collision between conflicting ideas keeps the mind at peace, 
but thinking is negligible in such placid states. Viewing 
questions from different sides so as to see their meaning 
and their relation to other problems, if done ingenuously, 
is likely to produce some mental perturbation, but the 
rearrangement of ideas that follows the agitation is quite 
certain to clarify the judgment. 

Sometimes the inability to see the "other side" assumes 
a humorous aspect. When, for instance, after a long 
friendship, politics estranged Felton and Sumner, the lat- 
ter wrote: "In anguish I mourn your altered regard for 
me; but, more than my personal loss, I mourn the unhappy 
condition of your mind and character." l And Carlyle, 
opposed to evolution, once said of Darwin: "A good sort 
of man is this Darwin, and well meaning, but with very 
little intellect." 

Here, again, we come upon another characteristic of 
human nature, illustrative of fixed opinions, and that is 
that prejudices grip us unawares, and we go on serenely in 
the happy belief that we think out questions and settle them 
by the reasonableness of the arguments. We have ob- 
served, however, that man does not think as much as he 
fancies he does. Prejudice is a habit of thought, and a 
habit of thought, as we shall see later, is a physiological 
matter — the tendency of nerve impulses to follow old, 
well-worn paths. Habits are physical conditions, like the 
tendency of a book to open to the place to which we fre- 
quently turn, and it is quite as difficult for man to break 

1 Memories and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce, vol. Ill, 
p. 220. 



70 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

an established habit in himself as it is to change the habit 
of the book. We grow into most of our ideas wholly un- 
consciously. This is because we always hear them uttered 
by the people who mingle in "our set." 

Our environment is full of problematic relations inade- 
quately solved because they are not understood. And 
they are not understood because of the prejudices of our 
mental complexes. The relation between capital and 
labor is an illustration. Many men are not even aware of 
the existence of some of these problems. Habits of thought 
and action usually embrace the range of behavior so com- 
pletely as to leave the narrowest margin for variation, and 
then only in matters of detail which have no significance 
for progress. The result is that progress, both in the in- 
dividual and in the race, is a series of blunders, each sub- 
sequent act being directed chiefly at mitigating the mis- 
takes of earlier ones. This is the animal method of trial 
and error, with apparently little more conscious mental 
prevision of the probable outcome of acts than is found in 
the lower animals. If this statement seems too strong let 
the reader study the history of the conservation of our 
natural resources, the granting of city franchises, the con- 
trol of public-service companies, or of corporations of a 
semipublic character. The pension system has not yet 
reached the stage of correcting past errors. It still con- 
tinues a colossal blunder. 

The resistance to clear thinking by fixed opinions and 
habits of thought raises the question of their cause. We 
have already mentioned one — the environment in which 
we live, the influence of early education and social pres- 
sure. But there is another, and that is the subtle effect of 
phrases. « 

Man deals largely in phrases — in word formulas. If we 
hear a phrase often enough we come to think we see mean- 
ing in it, however senseless it may be. This tendency to 
accept vague phrases is utilized by politicians, and not 



THINKING AND ACTING 71 

infrequently it is the reason for the success of a party at 
the election. Party slogans, to which we have already 
referred, by no means exhaust the list of ingenious politi- 
cal thought-controllers; and advertising experts who can 
coin phrases are in great demand. This method of direct- 
ing thought into prescribed channels and damming it up 
by appealing to human emotions and prejudices is so effec- 
tive as to constitute at times a social menace. Illustra- 
tions of phrases with carrying power, such as "the rights 
of man," "personal liberty," the "big cinch," and the 
"medical trust," might be continued almost indefinitely. 
They all beg the question, but they beg it convincingly. 
To accomplish their purpose the phrases must be sug- 
gestive, but they must also be vague enough to enable dif- 
ferent people to put their own interpretation into them. 
Acceptance of such word formulas promotes and perpetu- 
ates prejudices by obscuring the content, or lack of con- 
tent, of the phrases. The habit of not examining critically 
the phrases that we hear and use cultivates loose methods 
of thinking. 

Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger contains an excellent illus- 
tration of the effect of a word. Speaking of the candidacy 
of Mr. Bradlaugh for the House of Commons, one of his 
characters says: "It was not easy — at any rate it was not 
easy in the Five Towns — for a timid man in reply to the 
question, 'Are you in favor of a professed Free Thinker 
sitting in the House of Commons?' to reply, 'Yes, I am.' 
There was something shameless in that word 'professed,'" 
continues Mr. Bennett. "If the Free Thinker had been 
ashamed of his free-thinking, if he had sought to conceal 
his meaning in phrases — the implication was that the case 
might not have been so bad." 

Phrases cleverly worded to appeal to moral sentiments, 
and to feign an open-mindedness which their writers do 
not have, illustrate this power of empty words to cajole 
the human mind into placid assent in the conviction that 



72 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

it is thinking. The form of a statement with carrying 
power varies, of course, at different periods. We do not, 
as formerly, say, for instance, that Job's distemper was 
smallpox, and that he was probably inoculated by the 
devil, nor do we assert that the practice of vaccination is 
"flying in the face of Providence" and endeavoring to 
baffle a "divine judgment," but we still hear that vaccine 
is poison, and the influence of this word is still further 
strengthened by the addition of the disagreeable phrase 
"putrescent matter." The fact that the prejudice against 
vaccination continues in spite of the evidence in its sup- 
port shows the mystic power of a vague, unanalyzed word 
and phrase to stifle thought. The titles of a few pam- 
phlets against animal experimentation which the writer 
has recently received are worth quoting as additional evi- 
dence of the subtle effect of language in narcotizing reason. 

You will observe that, as was the case with "putrescent 
matter," the words used in these titles are disagreeable 
words — words that at once stir our indignation and so 
arouse prejudice against the acts which the writers are 
opposing. This is good psychology, but bad ethics. The 
following are some of the titles. Shall Science Do Murder?; 
Confessions of a Vivisector; Anaesthetics the Greatest Curse 
to Vivisectible Animals; Awful Vivisection of Horses; The 
Reality of Human Vivisection. 

Naturally, any subject of study that instigates murder, 
or group of men who commit the crime, must be bad, and 
confessions always carry with them the idea of sin. And 
further, the vicious depravity of those who indulge in the 
"awful vivisection of horses" and in "human vivisection," 
goes without saying. The success of such titles is an ex- 
cellent illustration of the convincing power of words. 

The last of these pamphlets to which I wish to call at- 
tention carries the psychologically effective title: Is Chris- 
tian Mercy a Cruel, Mocking Delusion? This pamphlet 
asks: "Can the church allow this deadly moral venom, 



THINKING AND ACTING 73 

distilled by vivisectors in their laboratories of scientific 
research, to poison the spiritual atmosphere of the souls 
Christ died to save?" 

The expression, "this deadly moral venom," is bad 
enough to convert any one to the doctrine of antivivisec- 
tion, and hence, if one has no respect for truthfulness or 
for the English language, its psychology is unimpeachable; 
but when, in addition, we learn that this "moral venom" 
is "distilled by vivisectors in their laboratories of scientific 
research to poison the spiritual atmosphere of the souls 
Christ died to save," surely, we must conclude that no 
dungeon or torture is adequate punishment for the dis- 
tillers ! 

The soporific effect of such phrases upon thought is a 
national menace to-day when animal experimentation is 
needed to investigate the medical and surgical problems 
of the new methods of warfare. While our young men 
on the battle-front of Europe are dying from new and 
obscure diseases, antivivisectionists are striving to stifle 
the investigations which must be made to combat suc- 
cessfully the new conditions and save the lives of our sol- 
dier boys. "Shock," "trench fever," "trench foot," 
"trench heart," "trench nephritis," and "shell shock" 
have never been met before, and each new poisonous gas 
requires separate experimentation upon the lower animals 
that its effect and cure may be discovered. 

We have said that understanding the problem and get- 
ting the facts are the beginning of thinking. This method 
is also the best antidote for mental numbness produced by 
phrases. Let us therefore examine some of the facts that 
show what animal research has accomplished. If these 
facts prove that human life has been conserved and suf- 
fering relieved by animal experimentation, then the prob- 
lem is simplified and resolves itself into the question 
whether men and women, and boys and girls are more 
important than dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and monkeys. 



74 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Besides showing the importance of facts, this reduction 
of a complex problem to a simpler one by eliminating un- 
essentials illustrates a method of clarifying thought. All 
of the knowledge to which we shall briefly refer has been 
obtained by experimenting upon the lower animals, and 
could have been gained in no other way. 

The mortality from wounds of the stomach during the 
Civil War has been estimated as high as 99 per cent. To- 
day "no complications ought to occur, save in exceptional 
cases." Doctor Keyes reports 1 a recovery after twenty- 
two gunshot perforations of the bowels. And this change 
would have been impossible without antiseptics discovered 
by experiments on the lower animals. Surgery of the 
chest, also, has been revolutionized. And as for surgery 
of the heart and arteries, a wholly new chapter has been 
opened. Suture of blood-vessels, end to end, as done to- 
day through the skill gained by experiments on lower 
animals, not only avoids the clot that in earlier attempts 
obstructed the flow of blood, but, in addition, this same 
method permits the transfusion of blood, an operation 
altogether impossible until many experimental trials and 
failures upon the lower animals finally achieved success. 

Tumors and abscesses inside the skull can now be located 
and frequently, in the one case removed, and in the other 
drained and cured. Tissues can be transplanted and made 
to grow, and, as is well known, with the skin this is now a 
simple operation. Serums have been discovered for epi- 
demic cerebrospinal meningitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, 
lockjaw, and typhoid fever. In the United States, before 
the use of the antitoxin over 120 out of each 100,000 in- 
habitants died yearly from diphtheria. To-day the death- 
rate is about 27 in the same number of inhabitants, and 
some of these could doubtless be saved were the serum dis- 
covered by animal experimentation used in time. Lockjaw 
is now almost unknown because of the use of its antitoxin. 
1 Journal of the American Medical Association, 1912, p. 1886. 



THINKING AND ACTING 75 

As for typhoid fever, it afflicted nearly one-fifth of the 
entire army of the Spanish-American War. "It caused 
over 86 per cent of the entire mortality of that war," and 
the surgeon-general's report for 191 6 says that the mor- 
tality from this disease during that year was three-tenths 
of one per cent for the entire army, regulars and national 
guard. Typhoid has ceased to be a scourge to the army; 
and this change has been brought about by animal experi- 
mentation. 

We have dealt at some length with the evidence for the 
value of animal experimentation to show the array of facts 
available for those who are interested in thinking this 
question out rather than in justifying a settled belief. 
Yet we have only scratched the surface of the proof. 1 
And the cry of opposition is not stilled. Even so clever a 
thinker in some matters as Agnes Repplier cannot avoid a 
rhetorical fling at this form of experimentation. 2 The ex- 
planation of the opposition of intelligent men and women 
is that frequently the emotions overbalance the intellect, 
and for such people facts have no meaning. They cannot 
understand and interpret facts because the emotional re- 
sistance dulls their critical judgment. 

Another effect of this emotional debauchery, aside from 
its extinction of thinking, is its moral influence upon those 
who indulge in the spree. It is not uncommon for anti- 
vivisectionists, for example, in quoting from the writings 
of experimenters, to omit the portions that would deny 
the statements and conclusions which the antivivisection- 
ists wish to give. And, again, the following by Mary 
Alden Hopkins, taken from Four Lights, 3 the organ perhaps 
of the People's Council of America, since they sent it to 
the writer, illustrates in another way the same mental and 

1 Those wishing fuller information should consult Animal Experimenta- 
tion and Medical Progress, by W. W. Keen, Boston, 1914. See also Medical 
Research and Human Welfare, Boston, 191 7, by the same author. 

2 Signed article in the New York Times Magazine, Nov. 11, 19 17. 
8 August 1, 191 7. 



76 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

moral obliquity. "Accustom your children gradually to 
the sight of blood," the paragraph begins, presumably rep- 
resenting the view of those who believe that war is ever 
justifiable. "And for yourself learn to kill a little every 
day. One sweet woman is accustomed to ask herself 
searchingly each night, 'Whom have I killed to-day?' and 
to fall asleep resolving to kill more on the morrow." Could 
there be a more charming case of moral perversity than is 
shown by this characterization of those who believe in 
fighting to preserve democracy? And what chance have 
thoughts — thoughts that lead to a valid conclusion — in this 
emotional vortex ? A hopeless argument destroys the moral 
perspective. 

Another source of error in much of our reasoning is 
man's inclination to decide the worth of ideas by the con- 
sequences which he thinks will ensue. We picture direful 
results and condemn the idea. Voltaire, for example, was 
so fearful lest the discovery of fossil fishes in the Alps 
would support the Biblical account of the deluge that he 
at once seized upon the first (and most ridiculous) explana- 
tion which could be offered, i. e., that they were the re- 
mains of fishes brought there by pilgrims. 

Two things may be said about judging ideas by their 
results: First, that the consequences which we fear may 
not follow, and second, that if they do they may not be 
as bad as we anticipate. Imagine what the men of the 
feudal period would have said had the plan been proposed 
of intrusting the protection of their estates and lives to 
a body of paid public servants, i.e., policemen. This 
judging by consequences was the chief reason for the oppo- 
sition to evolution. It was predicted that it would de- 
stroy religion and morality. The battles which were 
waged around Darwin's Origin of Species are among the 
fiercest and least intelligent in the long, cruel warfare 
against prejudice. So far as evolution is concerned, the 
war has been fought and won, and the result is a higher 



THINKING AND ACTING 77 

conception of religion and morality. Josh Billings, in his 
quaint way, expressed his opinion about those who are 
so sure of the disasters that will follow the acceptance of 
new ideas when he said: " 'Tain't what men don't know that 
makes trouble in the world; it's what they know for sar- 
tan that ain't so." 

It is doubtful whether prejudices diminish in number 
with the advance of civilization. They simply vary in 
kind, and this is one of our mental handicaps. Man thinks 
that he is progressing merely because he has thrown aside 
some ideas which were in vogue fifty years ago. It is easy 
to see prejudice in the thoughts and beliefs of earlier periods 
because they stand out in contrast with the background of 
modern knowledge; but the prejudice in beliefs which are 
fashionable to-day is not so easily detected. It is like our 
judgment of the oddity of clothes. We see the faults of 
the crinoline, especially, for instance, when we think of 
the wearer in connection with our crowded street-cars, but 
it should relieve us of at least a modicum of conceit when 
we reflect upon the probable remarks on present styles 
fifty years hence. And the same may be said of ideas and 
beliefs. 

The opposition to current social, industrial, ethical, and 
political innovations seems almost axiomatic because the 
prevailing ideas appear so self-evident. Besides, as has 
been said, we like to feel that questions are settled. Some- 
times we fear that doubt will give the appearance of vacil- 
lation. So we classify ideas under headings, and when our 
opinion is asked we need only refer to our mental card 
catalogue of right and wrong, anarchistic and socialistic 
acts or opinions, and the question is decided. We are like 
those who tie up clothing in bundles and untie these later 
only to take out a lot of antiquated goods. The difference 
is that we ourselves do not see that our ideas are out of 
date. Only those who have resisted the desire to preserve 
the old are aware of that. One of the sad facts in human 



78 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

psychology is that man grows old mentally long before his 
years warrant his antiquity. 

Illustrations of man's failure to think have been drawn 
largely from science because it would seem as though here 
if anywhere open-mindedness might be expected. Yet we 
have not found it so. In emotional questions, such as 
industrial problems that affect our business interests, and 
religion which draws its inspiration from our deepest in- 
stincts, the path of truth is strewn with the debris of per- 
sonal interests and tradition. It is here even more than 
in science that we need to-day above all things, as Alice 
Freeman Palmer once said, "The influence of men and 
women of generous nature, of hospitality to new ideas; in 
short, of social imagination." 

The mental attitude is often the deciding factor in think- 
ing. There are those who revel riotously in the obscure. 
They want to believe in "new thought," "metaphysical 
healing," clairvoyance, second sight, animal magnetism, 
etc., and so they readily find evidence. Proof of what we 
wish to believe is easily obtained. Obscurity, sounds like 
concealed wisdom to the credulous. The literature of the 
occult is loaded with meaningless phrases which the devo- 
tee believes will yield thought if only he can break through 
the outer crust and absorb the nectar of truth. About 
fifty men and women from one of the largest cities in the 
country recently took a course in "Where Dwells the 
I Am," under the direction of the high priest of the cult. 
I quote a sentence from one of the books that answers 
this question. 

"Through involution we are carried back to the nativity 
or primary life through material form, which is the first 
expression of love through earth form or upon this earth 
plane." These men and women were studying this drivel 
in the belief that its profundity obscured the meaning, 
and that the significance would be clear if they would but 
repeat it times enough. And they were right, at least so 
far as seeming to see meaning in it is concerned. 



THINKING AND ACTING 79 

It is characteristic of the human mind to be attracted 
and impressed by the unusual or sensational, and to fail to 
notice events that are daily occurrences. Now, it is true 
that exceptional instances have played a tremendously 
important role in the progress of science. There is nothing 
mysterious about routine events. The myriads of stars 
in apparently fixed relative positions and visible every 
night had less popular and scientific interest in the Middle 
Ages than two brilliant stars that suddenly shot into view 
and almost as quickly disappeared. One of these, indeed, 
started Tycho Brahe in his remarkable observations and 
investigations. But when the scientist is attracted by 
the unusual his interest quickly centres in its relation to 
the more common. The brilliant temporary star observed 
by Tycho Brahe interested him only as it suggested prob- 
lems about the stars which had previously attracted little 
attention. If it were an exception to the usual, then the 
usual was not understood. A law of nature can have no 
exceptions. Consequently, the scientist investigates the 
uncommon that he may understand the common. 

The public, however, is attracted by the unusual for 
quite a different reason. Like the scientist, they assume 
uniformity and consistency, but they attain it by predi- 
cating some new force or cause as an explanation. A man's 
dog does remarkable things — much more remarkable than 
the accomplishments of your dog or mine — but these ex- 
ceptional actions are easily explained. His dog reasons. 
Quite likely yours does not. At any rate, he is altogether 
willing to grant you that it does not; but his does. There 
is no attempt to carry uniformity beyond his own pet. In 
the same way believers in thought-transference or in the 
prophetic value of dreams will narrate wonderful cases 
which have come within their own experience. No at- 
tempt is made to bring these exceptional cases into con- 
formity with matters of common experience. It is suffi- 
cient that a name be given to explain them. Examination 
would frequently show that they were not even exceptions 



80 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

in any other sense than that they had attracted an excep- 
tional degree of attention. A "psychic," for instance, in- 
formed the writer some time since that she had a premoni- 
tion that her brother in Mexico was in trouble. Now, it 
so happened that at that time the continuous revolution 
was in progress in Mexico and everybody there was in 
trouble. A little reflection will convince the reader that 
if the merest fraction of his premonitions had come true 
he would be a raving maniac. 

There are various reasons for making the exceptional 
the standard. The unusual attracts our attention not 
always because it is striking and sensational, but some- 
times because of its effect upon us. "It always rains 
when I do not take my umbrella" is almost proverbial. 
As a matter of fact, if one were to record the days when 
one carried an umbrella or failed to do so, with a note for 
each day regarding rain, the statement would be found 
to be incorrect. The occasions on which I am caught in 
the rain without an umbrella are impressed upon me be- 
cause I spoil a new hat, or I am seriously irritated by the 
rain in some other way. On the other hand, the days 
when I do not take my umbrella and it remains pleasant 
leave no impression. They are forgotten because nothing 
happened that forced me to think the two facts together. 

In the case of the umbrella, thinking is obstructed be- 
cause we forget the favorable and remember the unfavor- 
able, but in another class of events the reverse is true. 
There is no contradiction here, however, since in both 
cases the reason for remembering the things that confuse 
thinking is the impression made, which in the case of the 
umbrella was caused by irritation and in the other by 
pleasure and hope. An illustration of the latter is quacks 
and prophets who thrive on the psychological effect of 
occasional successes among numerous failures. Clairvoy- 
ants arrested in Chicago said on the witness-stand that 
clients came in such numbers that they could not manu- 



THINKING AND ACTING 81 

facture prophecies fast enough to meet the demand. " Men 
mark when they hit and never mark when they miss," 
Bacon said; and it is true of the hits and misses of others 
when the hits coincide with our wishes. But it was a 
wise old Greek who, when shown the votive offerings to 
Neptune of those who had been saved from shipwreck, 
cried: "But where are the offerings of those who never 
returned?" 

The 1 91 7 mayoralty campaign in New York City, to 
illustrate from another angle, has proved again what has 
been observed repeatedly, that only the unusual — sensa- 
tional — in municipal administration attracts the attention 
of voters. The public is indifferent to the quality of gov- 
ernment unless intolerable scandals are disclosed. They 
are interested in turning rascals out, but not much con- 
cerned with retaining good officials. Good government is 
uneventful. Nothing strikingly unusual happens. So the 
attention relaxes. Probably Mitchel's administration was 
the best that New York has ever had, but there was nothing 
extraordinarily impressive to compel the attention to note 
its quality. Hence, reasoning, on the basis of the results 
produced, was defective. 

The tendency to fix the attention on the unusual reaches 
widely into events because, in some way or other, many 
of them affect our weal and woe; and in attending to two 
events, one of which follows the other, man, as we have 
seen, is prone to assume the operation of a force to bring 
about the conjunction. This, of course, vitiates his think- 
ing. The connection supposed by many to exist between 
the phases of the moon and the sowing of crops is an in- 
stance. A more common illustration to-day is the belief 
in some relation between the phases of the moon and rain. 
"It will not rain until we have a change of the moon" is 
a frequent statement. The truth in this probably lies in 
the fact that people do not begin to talk much about the 
weather until the condition is somewhat threatening. By 



82 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

that time rain is due, and in localities in which the pros- 
pect of rain is sufficient to warrant its discussion the 
chances are pretty good that it will come within, say, a 
week. By that time the moon has changed and the con- 
nection between the two events is settled to the satisfac- 
tion of those who are looking for that sort of cause. 

Thinking, then, briefly to survey the field, requires that, 
first of all, the trouble be located and defined. In intellec- 
tual matters this usually means a clear statement of the 
problem to be investigated. It must be freed from all 
unessential accretions — isolated from the incidental fac- 
tors associated with it. These accidental adhesions con- 
fuse the issue and derange thinking. After the problem 
has been clearly stated we are ready to get the facts. 
Everything bearing on the difficulty should be ascertained. 
Darwin's method indicates the numberless facts, days, and 
years sometimes needed. 

"When on board H. M. S. Beagle as naturalist," he 
says, 1 "I was much struck with certain facts in the distri- 
bution of organic beings inhabiting South America, and 
in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabi- 
tants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in 
the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some 
light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, 
as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. 
On my return home it occurred to me, in 1837, that some- 
thing might perhaps be made out on this question by 
patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts 
which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five 
years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, 
and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 
into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to 
me probable; from that period to the present day" [1859] 
"I have steadily pursued the same object." 

Not until facts have been accumulated and ordered are 

1 Origin of Species, Introduction. 



THINKING AND ACTING 83 

suggestions that are worth while likely to appear. Knowl- 
edge gives the raw material for solving problems, but in 
addition to knowledge there must be a sensitive, open mind 
anxious to see things as they are, instead of as we should 
wish them to be. While Newcomen was working on the 
engine which bears his name he noticed that the piston 
gave several strokes in unusually rapid succession. On 
searching for the cause he found that a hole in the piston 
let the cold water pass into the cylinder and thus caused a 
rapid vacuum. A thought suddenly flashed into New- 
comen's mind, and internal condensation by means of a 
jet was the result. 

Naturally, Newcomen had no emotional bias, but many 
questions, especially those of a social and industrial nature, 
cut deeply into our personal interests and desires. We 
therefore stress unduly certain factors and ignore others. 
Partly for this reason thinking is diverted into wrong 
channels and, at times, it is completely blocked. Again, 
man, for reasons lying far back in his past, tends to assume 
certain relations between events. It is, therefore, neces- 
sary to be continually on guard against diverting and per- 
verting influences upon the course of thought; for only by 
the utmost watchfulness can a problem be kept clear of 
unessential and human factors. And we should never for- 
get that "Cultivation," as Samuel Butler has said, "will 
breed in any man a certainty of the uncertainty of his 
most assured convictions." 



CHAPTER III 
HABIT IN PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 

When we observe an animal or plant we are impressed 
with the similarity of its life from day to day. It does 
much the same thing under essentially the same conditions. 
The root of a plant always grows down into the earth and 
the stem seeks the light; cats mew beseechingly at the 
sight of milk and spit when a strange dog appears; and a 
man awakens at about the same time every morning, eats 
much the same things for breakfast, reaches his office at 
the same hour each day, and begins his work in the serial 
order of yesterday. The reason for this similarity of action 
is habit. 

As was pointed out long ago by various writers, habits 
are the result of changes in matter. It is because of this 
that we sometimes speak of the habits of plants. Indeed, 
one may go much further and refer to the "habits" of 
non-living matter. Shoes, for example, are more comfort- 
able and flexible after having been worn for a few weeks, 
and the wood of a violin of an old master has acquired 
"habits" of vibrating that make it a more sensitive and 
delicate musical instrument. 

It will be observed that in some of these instances the 
changes are, in a sense, external. The creases of the 
shoes that make them more comfortable are visible. The 
alteration of the wood of the violin, however, is invisible. 
As a result of the skilful playing of the master the wood 
has acquired certain vibratory tendencies. It has become 
more flexible in certain ways; it responds more delicately 
to touch. To be able to adapt itself to new conditions — 
to have the capacity to change, the ability to adopt new 
habits — a substance must be flexible enough to alter its 

8 4 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 85 

form or its structure without losing its integrity. It must 
not go to pieces. Substances which have no plasticity 
or which break under alteration cannot acquire new habits. 

We are not accustomed, however, to speak of these re- 
sponses of non-living matter as habits. Neither do we 
usually apply the word to the actions of plants. The term 
has been reserved for the relatively settled ways of be- 
havior of animals — modes of action which have been ac- 
quired during the lifetime of the individual. Habit is 
thus distinguished from instinct. If we put it a little 
more technically, habit is a relatively organized and fixed 
nervous process, or series of processes, acquired by an in- 
dividual, the repetition of which results in greater facility 
and better accommodation to the conditions that start 
the process. Objects and animals alike offer resistance 
to modification — to change; and, when the change has 
taken place, the new arrangement acquires a permanency 
of its own. It has taken on new habits and again it resists 
alteration. 

The justification for making habit analogous to the be- 
havior of plants and the action of non-living matter is 
found in the fact already mentioned that habits are the 
result of changes in matter. A sprained arm, for example, 
is ever sensitive to strain. Some persons, again, are prone 
to sore throat, bronchitis, or tonsilitis. The tissues may 
be said to have the habit of easily becoming irritated. 
Functional diseases, again, are due to a predisposition of 
certain organs to function abnormally, and in such cases 
the purpose of medicine is to establish correct "habits" 
of. action. "Tapering off" is another illustration. The 
purpose of this treatment is gradually to overcome old 
habits by starting and strengthening ne*w ones. 

If we ask how habits are formed in animals we must 
turn to the nervous system for the answer. Nervous im- 
pulses started through the eye, ear, or other sense-organ 
run their course. They must find an exit; and their exit 



86 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

results in an adaptive response — in behavior of some sort — 
to an external situation, perhaps to an emergency. These 
nervous impulses in their course leave traces behind them. 
Some alteration occurs in the path which they have taken 
because of their passage over the route. There is some 
kind of a change in the nerves or in the connections be- 
tween the neurones, by which a path once traversed is 
opened, and consequently offers less resistance to the next 
nerve-impulse that seeks an exit. What is this change? 
We do not know definitely, but the indications are that 
it is of a chemical nature. At any rate, a path once trav- 
ersed by a nerve-impulse becomes an available outlet for 
succeeding ones, and a habit is thus established. 

Psychologists speak of "paths" being formed in the 
nervous system, and being made more easily traversible 
by the repeated passage of an impulse. This, of course, is 
an analogy, and analogies are likely to be misleading. But 
there seems to be truth in Carpenter's statement that an 
organ grows "to the mode in which it is habitually exer- 
cised." This is the case with muscle, as is seen in exercise, 
and there is no reason why it should not be true of the 
nervous system. Reconstructive changes are always going 
on, and these changes tend to emphasize and "fix" the 
sort of functional activity prevailing for the time. It is 
an instance of organic adaptation to demands. Exercise 
builds up muscle and lack of exercise is attended by grad- 
ual deterioration of the tissue. 

Activity always breaks down tissue which must be re- 
stored that the organ may not lose its power to function. 
This restoration, however, does not reinstate the original 
condition of the organ, for if it did the strengthening of a 
muscle would be impossible. The reconstruction is rather 
an adaptive process that tends to meet the demands put 
upon the organ, and in a nerve-unit this demand is for 
continued and improved accessibility to nerve-impulses 
that reach it over a previously travelled route. The need 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 87 

for an uninterrupted course exists, and the claim is made 
upon a particular nerve-unit because the path has already 
been traversed. In this way nutritional reconstruction of 
a neurone whose elements have been depleted by the pas- 
sage of an impulse tends to conform to the demand of 
other impulses for free passage. 

If we inquire why the nerve-impulse first took the path 
which began the habit, perhaps the most that can be said 
is that there was no special reason why it should not. For 
reasons hidden in the structure of the nerves, or their con- 
nections, it was at the moment the path of least resistance, 
and there was no urgent need for taking another course. 
A man, for example, has rented a house in the middle of a 
block. The first time that he starts for the street-car he 
may turn to the right or to the left. Both cross-streets 
are equally near to his house and to the car. He does not 
know why he took one rather than the other, but the first 
act establishes the habit and, except for special reasons, he 
will always follow the same route in the future. 

We are now able to state the first practical advantage 
of habit and also to show its evolutionary significance. 
Habit makes movements exact and "sets" them, and it lessens 
fatigue. One need only watch a child who is learning to 
dress himself try to button his clothes to see the advantage 
of this. If movements once acquired by practice were not 
"set," learning acts of skill would have no meaning. It 
would be necessary continually to repeat the trial-and- 
error method, and man would have no time for anything 
beyond the simplest, most elemental needs of existence. 

The lessening of fatigue in habitual occupations is quite 
evident in physical labor. The bricklayer is unfatigued 
by his day's work, and the store clerk stands or walks 
about for ten or twelve hours with ease, but let these men 
exchange occupations and both are exhausted at the end. 
This is not merely a matter of muscles. The nerve cen- 
tres and synapses — the functional connection between 



88 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

nerve-units — are factors in even "muscular fatigue." It 
is much the same with mental activity. An accountant 
ends the day as fresh as the department manager, but 
neither could do the other's work without exhaustion at 
the close of day. In all of these cases it is habit that 
makes the work endurable — habits of muscles, of nerve- 
connections, and nerve-centres. 

The same reason that makes a change of occupation 
fatiguing applies in adopting a new method for the same 
work. Subjectively the resistance of the nervous system 
to an altered response may have all the signs of fatigue. 
Yet in many instances this feeling of weariness expresses 
the organic reluctance to drive through the first line of 
trenches, to overcome the first resistance; and it is because 
of this characteristic of the nervous system that what we 
have called the tendency to minimum effort prevails. En- 
ergy is required to overcome this inertia and the effort is 
not easily made. When once the habits that constitute 
the revised action are established everything again runs 
smoothly. 

The advantage of habit is the exactness of automatized 
movements, and its evolutionary explanation is the need 
of meeting emergencies in a definite manner. Having 
found a successful reaction, the act once performed becomes 
the line of least resistance. In the species, habit represents 
the prudent, "safe" manner of behaving. These "habits" 
of the species, however, are deeply ingrained in the organ- 
ism and are called instincts. They are necessary for sur- 
vival and have been established by the elimination of those 
individuals who did not conform. 

Man tends to do things in the simplest way, in the way 
that requires least expenditure of energy. "No one, not 
even a child, likes to take unnecessary trouble," was one 
of Rousseau's keen observations; and habits are trouble- 
savers. A certain result is desired, and we have found 
that only so much energy is expended as its attainment 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 89 

requires. Illustrations in daily life are common. Profes- 
sional and business men wish to achieve a certain end. 
The goal is variable. "Success" has no absolute measure. 
Consequently, the methods that secure fair results are con- 
tinued, and habits are formed. Change of habit is always 
accompanied by a mental wrench. One's mind seems out 
of gear. Reactions do not run off smoothly. The habit 
of taking exercise, or of not taking it, and of the gait in 
walking, are illustrations. A man unaccustomed to regu- 
lar exercise cannot break away from his office, and business 
habits are difficult to change for exactly the same reason. 
The nervous impulses are accustomed to take certain 
paths, and when they run through these there is less re- 
sistance than when they take a new course. 

New paths, however, may be opened and two or more 
opposing habits may be brought to such a degree of per- 
fection that each will function without interference from 
the others when once the cue is given. Let us turn for a 
moment to some of the experiments which have shown 
this. It will then be easier to estimate the larger signifi- 
cance of habit. Munsterberg 1 tested the persistency of 
habit in two ways. He was accustomed to carry his watch 
in his left vest-pocket, so he changed it to his right trou- 
sers-pocket and noted the number of false movements. 
After a month had passed and he had acquired the habit 
of immediately putting his hand into his right trousers- 
pocket when he wished to ascertain the time, he replaced 
the watch in his left vest-pocket. He found that it required 
considerably less time to relearn the old habit than it had 
taken to accustom himself to the pocket of his trousers. 
Traces of the old habit therefore remained. He then alter- 
nated the use of the pockets and observed that the time 
for each relearning grew less until, after the third change, 
he could use either pocket without making any mistakes. 

He then tried a similar experiment with the inkstands 
1 Beitrage zur experimenlellen Psychologie, 1892. 



90 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

on his desk, filling first one and then the other and noting 
again the number of wrong movements. Finally he tested 
himself in using two doors leading from his office to the 
corridor. The one not in use was kept locked. The result 
of these experiments was essentially the same as with his 
watch; traces of the old habit remained and resisted change, 
but it was easier to relearn the old than to learn the new, 
and finally he could make the right movement, whichever 
it might be, without interference from the opposing habit. 
Miinsterberg therefore concluded that a given association 
— or habit — can function automatically while some effect 
of another, opposing, association remains. 

Repetition of Munsterberg's experiments, in Washington 
University, by members of the class in psychology, indi- 
cated that somewhat less time was required than he found 
to break the simple habit of taking knife, keys, or watch 
from a certain pocket. From two weeks to sixteen days 
were needed to reach the first errorless day in the estab- 
lishment of a new habit. 

Bergstrom 1 tested the effect of interference of previously 
formed associations (or habits) in sorting cards. He found 
that "the false movements" [in sorting the pack in a new 
order], "the errors which the subject was obliged to correct, 
and the consequent retardation, show that a strong asso- 
ciation had been formed. ... It is a mechanical struggle 
of habits." From his second study Bergstrom concluded 
that the effect of the interference of an association (or 
habit) partly established is equivalent to the practice 
effect. The earlier habits therefore persist. They have 
not been effaced. 

Miiller and Schumann 2 experimented with nonsense- 
syllables. They stated their problem as follows: "When 
a series of nonsense-syllables has been learned until it can 
be repeated once without error, and is then relearned to 

1 American Journal of Psychology, vol. 5, p. 366; vol. 6, p. 433. 

1 Zeitschrift fur Psychologic und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 6, p. 173. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 91 

the same extent after a certain interval, will more repeti- 
tions be required if in the meantime the syllables have 
been associated with another sort of syllables?" These 
experiments indicated considerable interference in the re- 
learning, because of the disturbance caused by the secon- 
dary associations. In other words, an incipient habit as- 
serted itself. 

Bair 1 attacked the problem of interference from habit, 
among other ways, by using a typewriter. The keys were 
associated with definite colors. He found that the differ- 
ence between two opposing habits grew less the more auto- 
matic the two responses became, and finally, after both 
sets of reactions were practised to perfection, the interfer- 
ence disappeared. This agrees with Miinsterberg's con- 
clusion that two opposing habits may be made so auto- 
matic that conflict disappears when they are alternated. 

The typewriter and sorting of cards were used by Culler 2 
in his experiments. The keys of the typewriter were num- 
bered and certain fingers were habituated to the different 
keys. Later, different fingers were used to strike some of 
the keys, and the interference was noted in the additional 
time required for the writing. Culler's conclusions may, 
perhaps, be best given in his own words: 

"When two opposing associations, each of which excludes 
the other, are alternately practised with one, four, or eight 
repetitions of each association before the other is resumed, 
the opposing associations have an interference effect upon 
each other in all " [persons] . ' ' The interference effect grows 
less and less while the practice effect becomes greater. 
The interference effect is gradually overcome, and both 
opposing associations become automatic, so that either of 
them can be called up independently without the appear- 
ance of the other. . . . When a change in reaction to 
several of a series of long-practised stimuli is introduced, 

1 Psychological Review Monograph Supplement, no. 19. 
1 Archives of Psychology, no. 24. 



92 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

as in the typewriting experiment, there is great immediate 
interference effect. This is shown by the increase in time 
and the recurrence of the former associations. . . . An 
error committed in practice tends to introduce interfering 
associations which will cause other errors. In some cases 
this interference has a general effect which causes various 
errors; in other cases it has a specific effect which causes 
a repetition of the error in succeeding trials." 

The last investigation of this subject which we shall cite 
was again an experiment in sorting cards in two different 
orders. In this investigation Brown 1 found that interfer- 
ence manifests itself to the detriment of success in trying 
to learn to sort the cards in two different ways. In be- 
ginning either of the two methods of sorting there was 
clearly loss of speed, due to the tendency toward conflict- 
ing movements, and interference was also indicated by 
increase in the number of errors. Errors always increased 
when the order in which the cards were sorted was changed, 
and those who were most disturbed made the larger num- 
ber of errors. Brown observed, however, that as the work 
proceeded practice in one order helped in learning the 
other. So learning to do a thing in two different ways 
need not be detrimental. This agrees with B air's conclu- 
sion that if a series of reactions is well learned this practice 
promotes learning a new arrangement of the series. 

This experimental evidence that two opposing habits 
may operate alternately does not refute what has been 
said about their dominating power. The experiments 
show that habits are closely isolated processes. Start one 
habitual series, and it runs its course. Start another and 
it does the same, even though there are elements in the 
two that conflict with one another. Habit clearly persists, 
delaying and disturbing opposing reactions, but when two 
conflicting habits have become automatic, interference 

1 Warner Brown, University of California Publications in Psychology, vol. i, 
no. 4. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 93 

between the two disappears. In acts of skill the sensation 
caused by a muscular contraction starts the next move- 
ment in a habitual muscular series. 

This is the explanation of complex acts involving many- 
simple movements. If one thoroughly masters a type- 
writer with one arrangement of the keyboard, before be- 
ginning on another with a different keyboard, for example, 
there is not only no interference between the two sets of 
habits, but the second one may even be learned in less 
time than was needed for the first. After the second has, 
in turn, become automatic, the two may be alternated 
without conflict between the two sets of habits. In the 
same way, if one is studying different theories regarding 
some scientific or social phenomenon, there will be interfer- 
ence between the two views and one will remember neither 
accurately unless the first is thoroughly mastered before 
the second is studied. After the first is understood and 
learned, the second will cause no confusion, and if each is 
made automatic there will be no difficulty in recalling 
either or both. 

Habits in individuals are practically inevitable reactions 
to surrounding conditions. In a very real sense they are 
personal reflexes. Aside from the automatized move- 
ments of which we have just been speaking, they show 
themselves in social mannerisms, in ways of talking, even 
to the words used, in the manner of walking, and in gen- 
eral in the mode of behaving. Families, schools, colleges, 
business houses, all have their peculiar habits, represented 
in the similarity of behavior of their members. 

The daylight-saving plan is an excellent illustration of 
public recognition of the irresistible force of habit. People 
cannot change their habits of rising and beginning their 
work by the clock; so the clock is set ahead an hour, and 
then everything works smoothly. It is a deliberate self- 
deception by which a whole city intentionally tricks itself 
into rising, working, and retiring an hour earlier by the sun. 



94 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The habits of the people are not disturbed, because they 
do everything at the same hour as before, by the clock. 

Habit is evidently a tremendous force which must enter 
into our computation of problems of human behavior. 
The long discussion about setting the clock ahead — it has 
now continued over two years — shows that our custom 
must not be disturbed. When we look at our watch pre- 
paratory to leaving the office, the time indicated should be 
the hour at which we are wont to leave. We must not be 
obliged to reflect upon whether we will leave an hour 
earlier than has been set by habit. If the routine is not 
disturbed the usual series of acts for that hour will run 
its course and the desk will be closed. 

We have said that habit makes movements exact and 
"sets" them, and that it lessens fatigue. We are now 
ready to state its second practical advantage. Habit first 
reduces and then eliminates the attention with which acts are 
performed. These acts will then become essentially reflex. 
Automatic actions and the handicrafts afford the best illus- 
trations of this advantage. So helpful is absence of atten- 
tion to automatic acts that when it is given to them they 
are disturbed. It is a matter of common knowledge that 
attention to our manner of walking across a ballroom 
makes our gait awkward. This has been illustrated in 
one of those little doggerels that so often represent the 
psychological observations of the layman: 

"The centipede was happy quite, 

Until the toad, in fun, 
Said, 'Pray, which leg comes after which 

When you begin to run?' 
This wrought his mind to such a pitch, 
He lay distracted in a ditch, 

Uncertain how to run." 

In the handicrafts, also, skill is not associated with atten- 
tion to the delicate muscular movements, and the impor- 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 95 

tance of habit in the moral and social virtues is too well 
known to require extended discussion. A recent report 
from an unexpected source, however, adds greatly to the 
significance of ethical, social, and industrial habits. A 
committee of the Society for the Promotion of Engineer- 
ing Education estimated the relative importance of the 
various factors that make for success in engineering. 1 
Over 5,000 practising engineers participated in the investi- 
gation, and knowledge of fundamentals and technic was 
rated at about 25 per cent. The remaining 75 per cent 
was accorded to various qualities into which habits of 
one sort or another enter. It has long been observed that 
engineers, when selecting young graduates for their em- 
ploy, inquire quite as much whether the applicants are 
leaders in college and in social service as about their tech- 
nical qualifications. They want subordinates who have 
acquired habits of leadership which will fit them to handle 
men; and they are of the opinion that these useful habits, 
if they are foreign to the earlier life of the young men, can- 
not be readily adopted in the course of the work. Ethical 
habits are evidently quite as significant for efficiency as 
those that are physical. 

Childhood and youth are the periods for fixing both in- 
tellectual and ethical habits. If a boy of seventeen has 
not learned that accurate facts are essential to correct 
reasoning, if he does not know the difference between 
facts and assumptions, it is doubtful whether he will ever 
make the discovery and acquire the habit of investigating; 
and in adult life, to turn briefly to the ethical side of the 
subject, one cannot successfully adopt manners and forms 
of behavior to which one has been unaccustomed earlier 
in life, cannot give the appearance of having been to the 
manner born. The efforts of the nouveaux riches to simu- 
late refinement, for example, would be pathetic did not 
their contentment with the grotesque result give a touch 
1 Engineering Education, vol. 7, p. 125. 



96 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of humor to the outcome. Dress, manners, and house 
furnishings all betray the humble origin, which is made 
vulgar by the attempt to conceal and forget it. Early 
habits of primitive taste and behavior are too firmly rooted 
to be eradicated. And one proof of this is the gratifica- 
tion of these people with the result. Not the slightest 
doubt of success clouds their satisfaction. 

Some people, on the other hand, in adult life become 
aware of the terrible handicap of habits against which they 
are struggling. "Could the young but realize," says 
James, 1 "how soon they will become mere walking bundles 
of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct 
while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, 
good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest 
stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. 
The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses 
himself for every fresh dereliction by saying: 'I won't 
count this time ! ' Well, he may not count it, and a kind 
Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none 
the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibres the mole- 
cules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be 
used against him when the next temptation comes. Noth- 
ing that we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped 
out." So strong is the grip of habit. Success or failure 
in life is being settled before the boy and girl are old 
enough to appreciate the meaning of their actions. A 
good quality of brain- tissue is made inefficient by its tre- 
mendous handicap; and only later, if ever, when the hold 
is too firm to loosen, does the man or woman realize what 
might have been. The formation of habits should look 
toward the future that they may become the allies of our 
mature purposes and aspirations instead of their enemies. 
In early childhood this is largely the business of parents, 
but in youth and early maturity it should be the chief 
concern of the individual. 

1 Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 127. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 97 

Resolutions and moral or ethical principles should be 
determinedly put into action, at once and on every occa- 
sion. Letting ideals ooze out in vapid sentimentality pro- 
duces only a tiresome, ineffective prater. Some men, for 
example, are mightily concerned over wrongs done to 
working girls in all factories and stores except their own. 
Many get their moral contentment by weeping over 
sin. They go on an emotional spree periodically, and they 
enjoy the orgy. Virtue oozes from every pore, and they 
bask in its sublime feeling; but they do nothing. The 
habit of emotional vaporization satisfies their longing to 
do good. 

Inability to act may become a habit as truly as can 
action itself. The writer has an acquaintance who for 
ten years has had a scholarly book ready for publication, 
but he cannot let it go. He is oppressed with the fear 
that it will not be up to date, that there is something 
which he will find if he waits longer — and hunts. It is 
doubtful whether the book will appear during his lifetime. 
Some people, again, are always making resolutions — always 
promising themselves to begin to work vigorously, to- 
morrow, always waiting for a great and perhaps conspicu- 
ous opportunity to do a social service, always preparing to 
break a bad habit; and then, as the habit of postponement 
becomes fixed, moments of anguish come, followed by 
periods of elation, as emotional virtue again soothes the 
mind. These people are rich in purposes, resolutions, and 
plans, but they never cross the Rubicon and burn the 
bridges. They are always vacillating between determina- 
tion and doubt, between hope and fear. Inefficiency is 
not infrequently caused by this habit of indecision, and the 
disastrous effect, in this instance, arises, curiously enough, 
from the very qualities of habit which in other ways are 
serviceable. It is this advantage and disadvantage of 
the same features of habits that make their outcome so 
important for efficiency. This may easily be shown. 



98 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Habit, we have said, first diminishes the attention with 
which acts are performed and then eliminates it. This is, 
of course, a great advantage in acts which should be mech- 
anized. Its limitation, however, should not be overlooked. 
Repetition makes perfect, but it perfects only that which 
is repeated; and the perfection consists solely in "setting" 
serviceable movements, after the elimination of those that 
are useless, or with mental processes in bringing informa- 
tion to mind of which we are in frequent need. It enables 
the physiological machinery to run without friction. 
Short cuts are formed in the nervous system. The route 
from eye or ear to muscle is shortened by eliminating the 
cerebrum from the circuit. Lower reflex centres are called 
into play and the brain is relieved of the burden of over- 
seeing these activities. After the simpler movements have 
become mechanized they may be combined into more com- 
plex actions, and in this way highly involved reaction- 
systems may be organized. Release of the brain from the 
direction and supervision of certain activities is a tremen- 
dous advantage, because it is left free for things that can- 
not profitably be made habitual. 

Illustrations are not wanting, however, to show that 
some acts should not be made habitual. One of the speak- 
ers at the Tuck School Conference on Scientific Manage- 
ment 1 said that he found the proprietor of a large printing- 
house answering telephone-calls. When asked if a boy at 
the telephone would not save him time for more important 
things he agreed, but said that he could not let go of such 
details. "I am constantly doing things which I have no 
business to do, but I can't get away from them," was the 
way in which the proprietor of another large establishment 
admitted his subjection to inefficient habits. These are 
only illustrations, but they represent the wasteful methods 
of two men engaged in business. Probably they are typi- 
cal. Of course men differ in their bad habits as well as 
1 Tuck School Conference on Scientific Management, p. 245. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 99 

in their good ones; but this merely means that the illustra- 
tions of inefficiency vary with different men. 

Examples of the "setting" of unproductive methods of 
work could be multiplied indefinitely. Teachers, according 
to Thorndike, rarely progress after the third year of ser- 
vice; and it is a common complaint of business men that 
those in their employ "stop growing" too soon. "The 
difficulty with which we are always confronted," said the 
manager of a large manufacturing plant recently to the 
writer, "is that our business grows faster than those within 
it. The men do not keep up with the changes." This is 
an instance of the human tendency of which we have 
spoken in an earlier chapter, the tendency to adjust one- 
self to the lowest level of efficiency that will "carry." 

These occupation-habits grow out of the need felt for 
getting things done quickly. The attention is fixed on 
the accomplishment of the immediate end rather than on 
the final outcome. Consequently, the person takes short 
cuts and is pleased with quick results. Time looms large 
— that is, the time at the moment. He does not see that 
minutes are saved at an immense expense of future time; 
and when a trial balance is struck he finds that, so far as 
achievements are concerned, he is bankrupt. He did not 
include the future in his mental vision. The final stage 
of the process was ignored. He was always busy, yet 
accomplished nothing. He has not even put himself in 
the line of significant results. This can be best illustrated 
by an act of muscular skill. A beginner in typewriting 
makes the most rapid progress by watching the keys and 
using the two forefingers. This plan, however, and the 
habits formed by its adoption, will never enable him to 
compete for the salary of one who practises the slower 
touch method and employs all the fingers on the key- 
board. 

A department store in a large city of the Middle West, 
to illustrate the inefficiency of certain habits in a different 



ioo PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

line of business, had engaged an unusually successful East- 
ern manager at a high salary. In a year he had so nearly 
wrecked the business that the management paid him 
$60,000 to annul the contract. This manager had ac- 
quired certain business habits which were successful where 
he gained his reputation, but he could not alter them to 
meet new conditions. He did not know why his methods 
had succeeded. He had not analyzed the situation. He 
merely grew into certain habits which happened to succeed 
because they harmonized with the conditions in his locality. 
It is quite likely that these circumstances had something 
to do with the formation of the habits. Probably, also, 
the harmony was, in part, a matter of chance. To a cer- 
tain extent, at least, he followed the method of the stenog- 
rapher to whom we have just referred. He adopted the 
plan that secured the quickest results. At all events, he 
did not understand the reasons for his success. If he had 
he would have known that the method might fail under 
other conditions; and he would have been able to readapt 
himself. "Managers want to get better results in their 
own way," says one of the most stimulating writers on 
business efficiency. "They don't want to learn new 
ways." 1 This is because "their own way" has become 
"fixed" in their nervous system, and it suggests the rule 
of action for making habits our allies in promoting per- 
sonal efficiency. 

This, then, brings us to our third point, that habits to be 
of advantage should be thoughtfully selected and organized 
instead of following unconscious adaptation. Those lacking 
constructive, productive power should be eliminated before 
they gain control. A distinction should be made between 
acts in which definite habits are beneficial and those acts 
that may best be left free. Perhaps a given kind of work 
should not be reduced to habit or, if it should, then the 
sort of habits to be formed is important. This puts intelli- 
1 E. St. Elmo Lewis, Getting the Most Out of Business. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 101 

gence into the process. After the selection has been made, 
those acts which can be done best through habit should be 
made automatic, and the others kept in a free, fluid con- 
dition, so that the best method of the moment may be 
utilized. Human failure is due largely to the fact that 
habits get us instead of our getting them. The rule-of- 
thumb man is in this class of failures. He wants rules so 
that he may reduce his methods to habits. It saves think- 
ing. "The rule-of- thumb man must have his vision en- 
larged, else it becomes ingrowing," says Lewis. 1 " As a type 
he is lacking in imagination, and therefore complains be- 
cause the talks of the board of commerce and articles in 
the trade papers are not about his business. He lacks the 
power to adapt, because he can only imitate. Imitation 
works in a vicious circle, repeating old errors until they 
become enwrapped in the winding-sheet of sacred tradi- 
tion, as grandma's remedies and father's policies." 

We have been emphasizing the importance of selecting 
our habits so as to mechanize only those acts which may 
be made automatic with greatest advantage to efficiency, 
and to leave the others free. The curtailment of efficiency 
through failure to follow this course, and the unconscious 
adaptation to the lower requirements of life, are admirably 
described by James. 2 Men, "as a rule," he says, "habitu- 
ally use only a small part of the powers which they actu- 
ally possess and which they might use under appropriate 
conditions. . . . The human individual lives usually far 
within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts 
which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his 
maximum, and he behaves below his optimum. In ele- 
mentary faculty, in co-ordination, in power of inhibition 
and control, in every conceivable way, his life is contracted 
like the field of vision of an hysteric subject — but with less 
excuse, for the poor hysteric is diseased, while in the rest 

1 E. St. Elmo Lewis, op. cit., p. 35. 

2 Memories and Studies, pp. 237-238. 



102 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of us it is only an inveterate habit — the habit of inferiority 
to our full self — that is bad." 

An illustration of the effect of a higher standard of work 
— the reverse side of the shield so vividly described by 
James — is the change produced in the methods of biologists 
as a result of Agassiz's example — a change almost equiva- 
lent to a revolution in habits. One evening Agassiz was 
a guest of the Boston Microscopical Club, "when a mem- 
ber made the statement that he had studied a certain form 
four days, and feeling that nothing resulted from this 
elaborate investigation gave it up as impracticable. After 
some discussion the guest of the evening, Agassiz, was 
called upon. He astonished his hearers by saying that he 
had also studied the object in question, having had it under 
his eye at stated periods night and day for six weeks" l At 
another time, to one of his students, who afterward became 
a distinguished entomologist, he gave an echinoderm, with 
instructions to be prepared on the following day to describe 
its external characteristics. After the description had been 
given, Agassiz again sent the young man back to the echino- 
derm, and, as the story runs, he kept him looking at this 
object for a week. At the end of that time the youth knew 
something about how echinoderms look, and he had ac- 
quired a habit of observation which he never lost. It was 
with much the same confidence in selected habits, asso- 
ciated with capacity to change, that James J. Hill sent 
many boys to agricultural colleges that they might acquire 
methods of investigation. He saw clearly that if they 
remained on the farm they would inevitably adopt anti- 
quated "farm habits." 

In the business world, as in all occupations involving 
human beings, to illustrate the need of selected habits and 
adaptive variability in a field too often overlooked, the 
manner in which the men are treated largely determines 

1 Louis Agassiz, by Charles F. Holder, p. 99. The italics are the present 
writer's. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 103 

the success of manager or foreman. Certain methods have 
been acquired from the environment, education, or train- 
ing, and they are followed. They secure results but per- 
haps not the best. Yet these managers know no other 
way. The Filene Co-operative Association of Boston is 
an instance of reversal of traditional business habits. The 
William Filene's Sons' Company decided to give the men 
and women behind the counter of their department store 
a voice in shaping the policies of the company. The asso- 
ciation, composed of members of the firm and of all em- 
ployees, may initiate or amend any rule that affects the 
efficiency of employees. The decision, passed by the 
council, may be vetoed by the management, but if after 
such a veto the association again passes it over the veto, 
by a two-thirds vote, the decision of the association is 
final. The plan made a sudden break from habitual busi- 
ness methods, yet it succeeded. A single instance will 
show how admirably and reasonably the employees have 
responded. "The question for vote was whether the store 
should be closed all day Saturday, June 18, the day pre- 
ceding being Bunker Hill Day, a State holiday. If this 
were done it would give the employees a three-day holi- 
day. . . . Agitation had been quite intense during the 
days preceding the meeting, for the employees naturally 
were interested in having an additional day's rest with 
pay; the meeting was to hear both sides of the question 
and to decide. After those in favor of closing had made 
their plea, those opposed brought out an argument few 
had considered, the fact that conditions were not analo- 
gous. It was pointed out that a Saturday in the middle 
of June was much more valuable and costly to lose than 
one in July, that it was the last Saturday before the bulk 
of the school graduations and that much more business 
would in all probability be lost. When the vote was taken 
the employees voted by an overwhelming majority not to 
have the extra holiday. . . . The firm considers" [the 



104 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

association] "worth many times what it has cost them in 
their time and money. It is no longer an experiment; it 
is a fact, and it has made the interests of employer and 
employee harmonize." *■ 

These practical results from the methods of the Filene 
Co-operative Association are additional proof of the ex- 
pediency of selected habits. Observation shows that it is 
not only inefficient but also unnecessary to settle down 
into the line of least resistance and adopt habits of ease 
or tradition. Reservoirs of energy commonly unused re- 
veal themselves in various ways. In physical endurance, 
for example, it is well known that at a certain point fatigue 
ensues. Then, if we persevere, we overcome the resis- 
tance and get our "second wind." We feel more vigorous 
than before and push on to a new achievement, perhaps 
breaking the record. Under such circumstances we have 
clearly tapped a new supply of energy, usually concealed 
by the first appearance of ennui and fatigue. "Mental 
activity," James once said, "shows the phenomenon as 
well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, be- 
yond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of 
ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, 
sources of strength habitually not tapped at all, because 
habitually we never push through the obstruction, never 
pass those early critical points." 2 Evidence of this is 
seen in the achievements occasionally observed in men 
suddenly placed in positions of great responsibility. The 
demand on their ability is worth their best effort and they 
rise to the emergency. "I did not know that it was in 
him," is our acknowledgment of his bursting through the 
barrier. It was not in him until he broke with his old 
habits of adaptation to an inferior level of accomplish- 
ment. 

An illustration of the firmness with which habits settle 

1 Sketch of the Filene Co-operative Association, by the firm. 
8 Memories and Studies, p. 230. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 105 

upon us, and of our feeling, when in their grip, that we are 
working to the limit of endurance, has just been related 
to the writer. The incident also shows the higher level 
that one may reach when forced to break through the 
enveloping crust of custom. The manager of a manufac- 
turing company had the oversight and direction of 9 
plants. "I thought that I was working to my limit," he 
says, "and I never felt quite caught up. Now, as captain 
in the quartermaster's department, I have the same over- 
sight of 150 plants, and I do the work just as easily as 
when I had only 9 under my control." The president of 
one of the large publishing houses in New York City re- 
lates a similar experience. "Since so many of our men 
have entered the service of the nation," he said recently, 
"most of us are obliged to do double work. We make 
our decisions quicker, and, so far as I can see, they are just 
as correct as when we took twice the time." These two 
instances testify to the relation between energy expended 
and the resistance to be overcome — the tendency to mini- 
mum effort; and they also show that when once the amount 
of energy has been gauged, habit fixes the output. To 
excite more energy, additional and urgent demands are 
necessary. 

The first barriers beyond which these men could not go 
until insistent demands supplied the stimulus — the "early 
critical points" to which James referred — are usually the 
result of inertia. Few obstructions are harder to break 
through than the habit of energizing at a low degree of 
intensity. Apparent mental fatigue, again, which may set 
up another barrier, is usually attributable to other causes 
than excessive work. "A physician of wide experience 
says that every day men come to him broken down in 
health, invariably telling him that they have overworked; 
and yet upon questioning them he finds that none of 
them work as hard as he. Their breakdown was due to 
the terrible load of unphysiological habits which they had 



106 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

been carrying — a load so great that scarcely any work 
could be carried in addition." 1 

Sometimes a severe shock is needed to force men to 
break through these "early critical points." The manager 
of a large business sent a young man out to survey and 
report on a certain territory. It looked like easy work, 
but when the investigator returned the manager asked so 
many questions about the people, their occupations, wealth, 
sports, habits, and other things, that the young man 
hardly knew whether he had been over the ground. Then, 
after he was told that his position depended upon more 
intelligent observation, as he has since informed the writer, 
he became aware of the habits of ease into which he had 
unconsciously fallen. 

Sir Baden Powell has told of a similar method which he 
used to awaken plodding recruits in India. He sent them 
out to forage for themselves for a week or a fortnight. 
During that time they generally had adventures and 
troubles enough to bring out whatever they had in them. 
If nothing came out they were hopelessly stupid. Usually, 
however, the experiences were sufficiently startling to break 
up their habits of lethargic ease, and by the time of their 
return they were able to move under their own steam. 

Shocks, in the form of sudden responsibilities to which 
one feels unequal, disturb the smooth running of the men- 
tal processes that have produced a complacency which 
blinded their possessor to his inadequacy in thought and 
action. Among the contented who are satisfied with doing 
their day's work just well enough to escape criticism and 
discharge, there is no analysis of situations, no apprecia- 
tion of comparative values, always a tendency toward ad- 
justment to existing conditions, always a tendency to econ- 
omy in making this adjustment, always a tendency to 
repetition; and with each repetition resistance is decreased. 

Viewed from another angle, habit has acquired immense 
1 How to Live, by Irving Fisher and Eugene L. Fisk, p. 125. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 107 

significance in the last few years because of the greater 
acceleration with which changes come and go. To-day a 
man's success in the business and professional world de- 
pends upon rapid adaptation to varying conditions. Fifty 
years ago business methods were settled. A young man 
learned a trade, entered his father's store, spent a year 
"reading" law, or studied medicine with a physician, and 
was quite sure of a satisfactory competence. Business 
methods were static, and scientific knowledge did not go 
forward with leaps and bounds. To-day everything is 
altered. Change, rapid change, is the conspicuous fact 
in all occupations; and this reveals new meaning in the 
utility of habit. 

"The fundamental limitation of the majority of men, 
from the standpoint of availability for promotion," said 
the manager of a large manufacturing company recently, 
"consists in lack of capacity to adjust themselves to new 
requirements. ... I find very few individuals making 
any effort to think out better ways of doing things. . . . 
We need, at the present time, four or five subordinate 
chiefs in various parts of the factory, and I can fill none 
of them satisfactorily from material in hand." * Yet this 
"material" consists of over a thousand men. Evidently, 
habits of doing things, of reacting to situations, reaches 
far into success and failure. 

In both physical and mental activity change reduces to 
an alteration of habits; and habit, we have found, is con- 
cerned with nervous impulses and with the activity of 
nerve-centres. The function of the nervous system is to 
co-ordinate and unify movements so as to adapt them to 
the needs of the individual. In the lower animals this co- 
ordination has been, to a large extent, "set" in instinctive 
actions. In man the same tendency exists for actions to 
become "fixed." We then call them reflex. There is al- 
ways a selection of movements, but this selection is rarely 
1 See Learning by Doing, by the author, pp. 212-222. 



108 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

conscious. In the more delicate movements it is never 
conscious. The question then arises, How is the selection 
made? The determining force is always environmental 
necessity. Among the lower animals it is the require- 
ments of survival — a relentlessly compelling force — and in 
man it is also the demands of the situation. Success in the 
business or profession in which one is engaged is the remote 
incentive. This, of course, creates immediate motives in 
the various details of the work. Obviously, unpleasant 
consequences of certain actions will cause the selection of 
others. But, as was said before, there is rarely a definite 
standard of success. Consequently, approximately success- 
ful actions and methods are selected, and soon they become 
fixed habits. A careless paper-hanger makes poor work- 
men of his apprentices, because, if the employer is satisfied, 
the consequences of indifferent workmanship are not ob- 
viously unfavorable. Habits cease to change and to become 
more efficient when no practical motive compels improvement; 
and with human beings improvement leading to more suc- 
cessful adaptation to conditions and situations has largely 
supplanted the requirements of mere survival as a driving 
force. 

This relation between habit and practical motives for 
improvement should be remembered, because so-called 
"bad habits" usually have a restricted meaning. The 
implication is that those which do not injure our health or 
morals are good. Much has been written, for example, 
in appreciation of the social necessity of habits of thought. 
Habit, we are told, "is the enormous fly-wheel of society, 
its most precious conservative agent. ... It alone pre- 
vents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from 
being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It 
keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through 
the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails 
the countryman to his log cabin and his lonely farm 
through all the months of snow. ... It keeps different 
social strata from mixing. Already at the age of twenty- 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 109 

five you see professional mannerisms settling down on the 
young commercial traveller, on the young doctor, on the 
young minister) on the young counsellor at law. You see 
the little lines of cleavage running through the character, 
the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the 
'shop,' in a word, from which the man can by and by 
no more escape than his coat sleeve can suddenly fall into 
a new set of folds. On the whole, it is best he should not 
escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the 
age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will 
never soften again." l The truth in this is that it would 
play havoc in the world to have no consistency, no sta- 
bility, no conservatism, to have every one deserting his 
post and running off on a tangent. Of this there can be 
no question. The writer ventures to suggest, however, 
that habit — the tendency to repeat — is so firmly fixed in 
man's nature that it needs no support of argument. 

When Benjamin Franklin, for instance, conceived "the 
bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection," 
he found that while he was guarding against one fault he 
was often surprised by another. "Habit took advantage 
of attention; inclination was sometimes too strong for 
reason." 2 Al Jennings cites a striking case of habit in a 
clerk in the Ohio penitentiary. "As he began to instruct 
me in my duties he talked in a monotone from one corner 
of his mouth. I took it for a little congenital peculiarity. 
Really it was a habit he had formed while in the shops. 
Conversation was forbidden to all but first-class convicts. 
When they want to talk they look past the hearer to a 
distant object and speak from the corner of the mouth 
nearest" [the listener]. "You could watch the other side 
of their faces all day and never see a movement. He had 
learned the habit so young that he couldn't break it even 
in the transfer office, where he had no rule of silence." 3 

1 James, Psychology, Briefer Course, pp. 143 /. 

2 Autobiography, p. 142. 

3 Beating Back, pp. 173/. 



no PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Habits, then, returning to their utility for progress, do 
not contain the element of growth. So far as they are 
handed down through generations they preserve what 
the race has found serviceable. It is racial preparedness. 
Primitive man, having mastered a series of complex ac- 
tions in one situation, was ready for a similar emergency. 
The value of this sort of preparation becomes a disadvan- 
tage only when life becomes so complex and changeable 
that the old ways of meeting emergencies are no longer 
adequate. When man's ancestors first descended from 
trees, for example, arboreal habits no longer sufficed. It 
was necessary for them either to change their manner of 
reacting to dangers or to go back to the trees; and those 
who went back to the trees, whether figuratively or liter- 
ally ceased to progress. A recent book, entitled Arboreal 
Man, 1 has the significant title for one of its chapters, "The 
Failures of Arboreal Life"; and this would be a good motto 
for business and professional men to hang above their 
desks. "Different environments," this author says in 
another connection, "offer varying possibilities of educa- 
tion, but the full educational possibilities are not neces- 
sarily grasped ... by the animal which becomes com- 
pletely specialized. This is a fact made clear by a whole 
sequence of geological types which have seized upon their 
environmental opportunities and have become specialized 
in an extraordinary degree to fit their environment, only 
to arrive at specific senility and be supplanted by less 
specialized and more plastic types. A complete, early, and 
all-absorbing specialization is almost synonymous with 
specific senility. An animal which specializes to the lim- 
it in response to its environment becomes a slave to its 
environment and loses its greatest evolutionary asset of 
plasticity. This, in the end, spells the end of progress." 2 

1 By F. Wood Jones, London, 1016. 

1 See, also, The Origin and Evolution of Life, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, 
1917, pp. 159, 257/. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY nr 

These specialized adaptations of which the author whom 
we are quoting speaks are habits of the species that have 
become fixed as instincts. The natural history of animals 
offers many examples of highly specialized failures, so far 
as progress is concerned; and the same principle applies to 
man. A highly specialized individual will act more effi- 
ciently within the narrow limits of his special training, but 
he will inevitably fail in meeting the larger, varying prob- 
lems of life. He lacks the extended view which includes 
the broader meanings and implications within its range of 
vision; and he is wanting in flexibility and versatility be- 
yond the boundaries of his habits of thought and action. 

Failure because of adamantine habits produced by this 
same sort of narrow specialization is also indicated in pre- 
historic man. The Neanderthals were driven from their 
places of abode and finally entirely destroyed by a race 
superior in culture, in industry, and invention. "The 
Neanderthals, no doubt, fought with wooden weapons 
and with the stone-headed dart and spear, but there is no 
evidence that they possessed the bow and arrow. There 
is, on the contrary, some possibility that the newly arriv- 
ing Cro-Magnon race may have been familiar with the 
bow and arrow, for a barbed arrow or spear head appears 
in drawings of a later stage of Cro-Magnon history, the so- 
called Magdalenian. It is thus possible, though very far 
from being demonstrated, that when the Cro-Magnons 
entered western Europe, at the dawn of the Upper Palaeo- 
lithic, they were armed with weapons which, with their 
superior intelligence and physique, would have given them 
a very great advantage in contests with the Neanderthals." l 
At any rate, the new arrivals, with their greater inventive- 
ness and mental flexibility — they were probably the first 
of the Homo sapiens — produced a tremendous social and 
industrial change. The Neanderthals, however, during the 
period of their aggressive adaptation, displayed amazing 
1 Men of ike Old Stone Age, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, p. 258. 



ii2 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

prowess. "There was a very decided disparity between 
the strength and resistance of their weapons, and the 
strength and resistance of the animals which they pursued. 
. . . The chase even of the horses, wild cattle, and rein- 
deer was apparently without the aid of the bow and arrow, 
and prior to the invention of the barbed arrow or lance 
head." But by the time of the arrival of the Cro-Mag- 
nons they had reached the limit of their inventiveness and 
progress, and were on the decline. The new race, with its 
superior flexibility, was able to overcome both the severe 
conditions of the fourth glaciation and the Neanderthals 
whom they found as enemies. Finally, however, the Cro- 
Magnons, having run their course, succumbed, in turn, 
before more flexible and hence more adaptive races. Prob- 
ably their failure in the contest of life, without any appar- 
ent environmental causes, like the similar decline of certain 
civilized races, after a period of great industrial, intellec- 
tual, and martial progress, was due to the inertness that 
is always associated with mental stasis. It is an illustra- 
tion of minimum adaptation. The habits which meet the 
lowest requirements of survival persist, and when an emer- 
gency arises requiring rapid readaptation such static races 
are unequal to the demands. • 

Habit, we have said, eliminates consciousness. This has 
been shown to be an advantage in certain matters. It also 
dispenses with intelligence. And this is bad, unless the 
habits are selected with discrimination. If a business man 
were to ask his employees what habits they had consciously 
formed during the past week he would create a panic 
among the men. And if he would put the same question 
to himself he would be unable to find an answer. Effi- 
ciency in matters of habit demands an analysis of a given 
piece of work, as, for instance, of a situation that is to be 
met, to determine what part of it may best be mecha- 
nized and what requires intelligence. 

The organic tendency to make adjustments to condi- 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 113 

tions with the minimum output of effort, of which we have 
spoken, and the propensity of nervous impulses to con- 
tinue, subsequently, to follow the path which they first 
took, with the consequent reduction of efficiency to the 
lowest level that will "pass," has been found to be as true 
of mental activity as of the physical; and in thought, with 
its resulting behavior, release of the brain from supervision 
by "setting" the mental processes, works disastrously. 
"Hardly any of us," said William James, 1 "can make new 
heads" [for ideas] "easily when fresh experiences come. 
Most of us grow more and more enslaved to the stock con- 
ceptions with which we have become familiar, and less and 
less capable of assimilating impressions in any but the old 
ways. Old-fogyism, in short, is the inevitable terminus 
to which life sweeps us on." 

This is not a pleasant picture, but the important ques- 
tion is, Is it true? Unfortunately, Professor James has 
not overstated the facts. But is there no way out, no way 
of escaping from the slavery of habit in thinking? Not 
altogether. Habit is an organic fact. Its justification is 
the need for conserving successful reactions. Having once 
learned to react successfully in a given situation, primitive 
man could best preserve himself and the race by repetition. 
This was because of his low intelligence. Marked varia- 
tion was a dangerous innovation. With him reactions 
were at first chiefly physical, but as he developed and life 
became more complex the mental became more prominent. 
But, after all, the basis of habit is the same, whether it be 
in acts of skill or in the most intricate processes of the 
mind. The nervous system underlies both, and, funda- 
mentally, habit always goes back to the tendency of ner- 
vous impulses to repeat themselves. 

One of the chief problems in personal efficiency, it should 
be emphasized again, is to decide what acts may be most 
advantageously intrusted to habit. These actions — those 
1 Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 328. 



ii4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the mechanical type — should then be made automatic. 
No exception should be permitted. With other matters — 
those requiring intelligence — the difficulty is not in form- 
ing habits, for this tendency is always dominant, but in 
keeping free from them, not in accepting the ideas, beliefs, 
and customs of those with whom we live and work, but 
in breaking away from them. 

As long as we consider present beliefs and the attitude 
of people toward present conditions or novel ideas, the ad- 
vantage of the argument concerning habit is with the con- 
servatives; for it is difficult to demonstrate a better con- 
dition, or to prove the value of something that has not 
yet happened. When we look back over history, however, 
the view clears. 

We commonly think that we advance in the ordinary 
course of events. "Our habitual instructors, our ordinary 
conversation, our inevitable and ineradicable prejudices," 
said Bagehot, "tend to make us think that 'Progress' is 
the normal fact in human society, the fact which we should 
expect to see, the fact which we should be surprised if we 
did not see. But history refutes this. . . . What is most 
evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but of 
getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing a cake of cus- 
tom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making 
the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it and 
reaching something better." l 

What usually happens is that some one breaks away 
from conventional, habitual thoughts, is condemned for 
his erratic ideas, and dies perhaps an outcast from "sane" 
society. Another age erects a monument to his memory, 
and people gather there in grateful commemoration of the 
ideas for which their fathers cast him out; and men con- 
tinue in the delusion that they are progressive. Men 
who made the sciences upon which our comfort, our health, 
our lives depend, have been crucified upon the cross of 
1 Physics and Politics, pp. 41, 52. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 115 

tradition. In what did their crime consist? In offering 
something new. 

A volume could be filled with examples of the abuse of 
men because they did a social service. Harvey enjoyed a 
large practice before he published his book Concerning the 
Motion and Uses of the Heart and Arteries, because he was 
a surgeon of wide repute. But after the appearance of 
his book he "fell mightily in his practice; 'twas believed 
by the vulgar that he was crack-brained and all the physi- 
cians were against him." Harvey himself, speaking of the 
reception of his discovery, says: "These views, as usual, 
pleased some more, some less; some chid and calumniated 
me, and laid it to me as a crime that I had dared to depart 
from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists. I trem- 
ble lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much 
doth wont and custom become a second nature." x 

Another illustration of habits of thought is furnished by 
an instance in the life of Benjamin Franklin, who sent an 
account of some of his experiments in electricity to Mr. 
Collinson in England, to have them read in the Royal 
Society; but the members did not think them of sufficient 
importance to be printed in the Transactions. Among 
Franklin's other experimental contributions was a paper 
on "The Sameness of Lightning with Electricity," which 
he sent to an acquaintance, Doctor Mitchel, who was a 
member of the Royal Society. Doctor Mitchel wrote in 
reply that it had been read before the Society, but had 
produced only laughter. Some of these papers were later 
printed in a pamphlet by Cave. " A copy of them happen- 
ing to fall into the hands of the Count de Buff on, a philos- 
opher deservedly of great reputation in France, and indeed 
all over Europe, he prevailed with M. Dalibard to trans- 
late them into French, and they were printed in Paris. 
The publication offended the Abbe Mollet, preceptor in 
natural philosophy to the royal family, and an able experi- 

1 F. D. Harris, Popular Science Monthly, vol. 82, p. 459. 



n6 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

menter, who had formed and published a theory of elec- 
tricity which then had the general vogue. He could not 
at first believe that such a work came from America, and 
said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, 
to decry his system. Afterward, having been assured that 
there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadel- 
phia, which he had doubted, he wrote and published a 
volume of 'Letters' chiefly addressed to me, defending 
his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments and 
the positions deduced from them." x 

Again, Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes' paper on the 
Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, published before the 
idea of infection had gained sufficient standing to be re- 
spectable, was bitterly attacked by two of the leading 
obstetricians of the East. Doctor H. L. Hodge, professor 
in the University of Pennsylvania, said in an address to 
his medical students: "The result of the whole discussion 
will, I trust, serve not only to exalt your views of the value 
and dignity of our profession, but to divest your minds of 
the overpowering dread . . . that you can ever convey, in 
any possible manner, a horrible virus, so destructive in its 
effects and so mysterious in its operations, as that attrib- 
uted to puerperal fever." 

Doctor Charles D. Meigs, of the Jefferson Medical Col- 
lege, Philadelphia, in his book on the nature and treat- 
ment of puerperal fever, said, speaking of infection: "I 
utterly reject and deny it; and of course I shall not be dis- 
tressed because two very young gentlemen" [of whom 
Oliver Wendell Holmes was one] "say: 'We think the con- 
tagiousness ... of childbed fever ... is a fact estab- 
lished on the most irrefragable evidence. . . .' And shall 
we now go back again to the capabilities of a Celsus, or an 
Avicenna, or an Avenzoar? Or shall we rather disregard 
the jejune-dreamings of sophomore writers" [Holmes and 
others] " who thunder forth denunciations, and would mark, 

1 Autobiography, pp. 269 /. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 117 

if they might, with a black and ineffaceable spot, the hard- 
won reputation of every physician. . . ." 1 

Galvani was ridiculed as the "frogs' dancing master," 
Daguerre was put into an asylum for saying that he could 
transfer the likeness of human beings to a "tin plate." 
Ohm, also, was thought insane, and Florence pleaded for the 
dust of Dante, whom only a century before she had ordered 
to be buried alive. Cuvier angrily threw fossil bones out 
of his window, and buried their meaning in derision for 
thirty years. Lavoisier proved that meteorites could not 
fall from the skies, the Bavarian Royal College of Physi- 
cians asserted that railroads would ruin the health of the 
people because the rapid motion would give the travellers 
brain disease, and Professor Lovering of Harvard demon- 
strated mathematically the impossibility of telegraphing 
three thousand miles under the ocean. Lebon, the dis- 
coverer of illuminating gas, died in ridicule because he 
believed in "a lamp without a wick." Jouffroy, the in- 
ventor of steamboats, passed away in poverty, having 
spent all of his money in vain attempts to change the 
habits of thought of the people, and Lardner's essay prov- 
ing the impossibility of the steamboat was brought over 
from England in the first boat, following Fulton's invention, 
to cross the Atlantic; Young, a physician, saved his prac- 
tice by anonymous publication of his theory of light, color, 
and luminiferous ether, a century after Hooke had first 
made the discovery; Plenciz observed as early as 1762 that 
certain diseases and decomposition were caused by micro- 
organisms, but it was not until Pasteur's discoveries in 
1876 that the bitter controversy was ended. And we are 
still in the midst of the fight against antitoxin serums and 
animal experimentation. 

r Doctor Osier, in an address before the Johns Hopkins Medical Society, 
October 15, 1894, referred to Doctors Hodge and Meigs as "the two leading 
professors of obstetrics in this country" at the time of this controversy 
with Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



n8 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

These illustrations could be extended indefinitely, but 
they are sufficient to indicate the evidence for the state- 
ment above that habits of thought do not need nurturing. 
Resistance to habits, or at least conscious selection of 
those which we allow to gain a hold, is the first principle of 
efficiency and progress, and this is what Rousseau seems 
to have had in mind when he exclaimed: "The best habit 
to form is to contract no habits whatever." 

Man, however, as we have seen, likes to feel that certain 
questions are answered, certain problems settled. Fre- 
quent rearrangement of opinions and of ideas, to make 
them consistent with new facts, would keep one thinking; 
and thinking is a strain. So ideas are classified and tied 
up in bundles, properly labelled. Then when a social or 
business proposition is laid before us we know at once 
which bundle to untie. This is classification and "order." 
Everything is put away in our mental files, and all that is 
needed to settle a question is to find under what subject it 
is classified. This is a convenient and easy method. Its 
only fault is that it leads nowhere. It ends in a blind 
alley. An excellent illustration is the comments of writers 
and preachers on the suicide of General Nogi. Obviously, 
knowledge of the religion and philosophy of Bushido was 
necessary for an understanding of his act. The Anglo- 
Saxon classification of ideas was inadequate for its inter- 
pretation. The explanation of fossils as models of animals 
upon which God practised, and with which he was dissat- 
isfied, is another illustration. It was an attempt to make 
the new conform to the conventional classification of 
causes, of things, and events. 

Organization of ideas is necessary, of course. This is 
the way in which the laws of science have been gained. 
But no classification or generalization should be regarded 
as final. Ideas should be kept in a fluid state, so that 
they may easily make new combinations. Settled opin- 
ions, "filed away," may be as unsuited to the new condi- 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 119 

tions as were the ideas of Rip Van Winkle when he awoke. 
"You will never find your way out," angrily cried the 
chemist Biot to Pasteur, when he refused to give up his 
researches on spontaneous generation. That was because 
Biot's opinions were rigidly classified. They could not 
form new combinations. When Ericsson asked for an ap- 
propriation to build the Monitor, Fox, 1 assistant secretary 
of the navy, and the naval board, condemned the idea. 
They said that the heavy armor would sink the vessel. 
Their opinions were organized and filed away. They 
would not even test them with arithmetic, as Lincoln 
wished them to do. The department store, the cost- 
keeping systems, loose-leaf books, gathering statistics, 
charting the demand for commodities, adding-machines, 
card methods, all these things and many more have been 
condemned by the classified opinions of business men. 

"You see all organization, with its implication of finality, 
is death," H. G. Wells makes Mr. Britling say. "What 
you organize you kill. Organized morals or organized 
religion or organized thought are dead morals and dead 
religion and dead thought. Yet some organization you 
must have. Organization is like killing cattle; if you 
don't kill some the herd is just waste. But you mustn't 
kill all or you kill the herd. The unkilled cattle are the 
herd, the continuation; the unorganized side of life is the 
real life. The reality of life is adventure, not performance. 
What isn't adventure isn't life. What can be ruled about 
can be machined, and there is always a tendency to organ- 
ize and then to automatize." 

When the relations between the individual and his en- 
vironment are definite and maintained, habit dominates. 
Even when these relations are indefinite and subject to 
alterations, habit still tends to rule. This is shown in acts 
that involve volition. 

1 Mr. Fox later saw the value of Ericsson's invention and became one of 
his most vigorous supporters. 



120 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Experiments involving choice between different re- 
sponses carried out by Barrett 1 illustrate this. We quote 
his description of the outcome. "Regularity in the reac- 
tions," he says, "was manifested in every phase of the 
choice-process, in the manner of reading the" [different] 
cards" [to which the persons reacted], "in the manner of 
reacting, and of realizing the choice. Automatism entered 
into every detail of the experiment. Even the experimenter 
came to perform the various functions in a perfectly auto- 
matic way, so much so that the salient note of the whole 
experiment, toward the end of the series, was its mechani- 
cal regularity. . . . We see that the natural tendency is 
toward automatic choosing. The times grow shorter, the 
number of phenomena" [admitted within the field of choice 
by the individual] "grows less, only one alternative is con- 
sidered; there is economy in every sense, and finally the 
motivation reaches such a point that it never, or practi- 
cally never, deviates from a certain curve or motivation 
track." 

In Barrett's earlier experiments those who were being 
tested made many remarks about motives, feelings, and 
judgments which influenced action, but toward the end 
they had little to say. "There was nothing to remark. 
There were no feelings, hesitations, or motives to describe. 
The mental act had become direct and simple. . . . The 
will had gradually ceased to expend useless effort. Voli- 
tional force was economized. . . . Automatism held sway, 
and there was nothing to record." That is a pretty good 
description of stagnation as far as mental activity is con- 
cerned; yet it seems to be the final outcome of being pos- 
sessed by habit. Evidently, if one is to have living 
thoughts, if, indeed, one is to think at all, it is necessary 
to set up a determined resistance to the encroachment of 
habitual modes of thinking and behaving. 

Experience gains value to the extent to which inten- 

1 Motive-Force and Motivation Tracks, by E. Boyd Barrett, pp. 140, 149. 



PREPARATION FOR EFFICIENCY 121 

tional thoughtful variation characterizes the range of activ- 
ities. For, as Rousseau long ago said: "He who has lived 
most is not he who has numbered the most years, but he 
who has been most truly conscious of what life is. A man 
may have himself buried at the age of a hundred years, 
who died from the hour of his birth. He would have gained 
something by going to his grave in youth, if up to that 
time he had only lived." 

Measuring up to our possibilities is a troublesome mat- 
ter, not because of lack of desire — for the vast majority of 
people are anxious to do so — but because of the difficulty 
of realizing on our abilities, of turning them into achieve- 
ment. Man, like his forebears, was made on the plan of 
adaptation, and adaptation means fitting into conditions. 
It does not lead to progress, unless external conditions force 
such a change. Habit is a preservative. It conserves and 
fixes those types of behavior which help the individual to 
fit into his environment. But habit is satisfied with the 
lowest level of "fitness." It must, therefore, be controlled 
and directed, else it does not serve us well. 

We have found that habit eliminates attention. Only 
those matters, therefore, which finally require no attention 
should be intrusted to it. Consequently, selection is nec- 
essary. Acts of muscular skill, ethical and social behavior 
should be reduced to habit; and then no deviation should 
be tolerated. But even here it must be remembered that 
there is always a tendency to form habits before a high 
degree of muscular dexterity or of ethical and social attain- 
ment has been reached. This makes the difference be- 
tween poor workmen and skilful artisans, as well as be- 
tween mediocre tennis and golf players, and those who 
can qualify for tournaments; and the same distinction 
exists in behavior in general. 

The elimination of attention from habitual processes re- 
veals the activities from which habit should be barred. 
It is a distinct advantage to relieve the higher brain cen- 



122 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tres of the supervision of skilful movements which have 
been acquired during the preliminary apprenticeship in 
work or games; and one should not need to wait to decide 
on acts of courtesy. It is disastrous, however, to free 
these higher centres from control of matters that require 
intelligence. For habit is a treacherous ally. It takes 
us off our guard and registers all our acts. Its subtlety 
is seen in our ignorance of the fact that it possesses us. 
Those who condemned the discoveries of the men to whom 
we have referred did not know that their minds had be- 
come inflexible. They believed that they were thinking 
and that they were doing a social service. Freedom from 
habituation is relative; thoughts, opinions, and beliefs are 
largely fixed by social groups, and we adjust ourselves to 
them involuntarily and unintelligently. Then they be- 
come fixed as mental habits of which we are no more aware 
than we are conscious of our professional and family man- 
nerisms. We believe that we see the reason for them, so 
gentle and insinuating is their mastery. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 

Learning in its widest sense is profiting from experi- 
ence. Education is sometimes said to consist of habit 
formation, but we have seen that habits mean repetition, 
and that only those acts should be repeated which can 
best be performed when automatized. Even these acts 
should not be reduced to habit until they have been per- 
fected and, as has been said, the tendency always exists 
to mechanize at a low level of attainment. Ability to 
continue learning — to improve upon what one has already 
done, to see more meaning in experience — measures intel- 
ligence. 

The higher animals stand in the evolutional scale the 
more prominent is the role that learning plays in their 
lives. In man it is the method of development. There 
are, however, certain general aspects of learning which 
may be set apart from its narrower applications as mani- 
fested in acquiring facility in some act of manual skill, 
and it may be well, first, to consider some of these larger 
phases of the subject. 

Human activities may be roughly divided into the men- 
tal and physical. To be sure, the one never exists without 
the other, and, consequently, such a classification only in- 
dicates somewhat freely the dominating feature. Now, 
there is a rather wide-spread belief that these two sorts of 
activities differ essentially in their origin. The physical 
activities, including as they do the manual arts and trades, 
are generally admitted to be improved by instruction. 
Skill in certain mental arts, however, is commonly thought 
to be an exception to this rule. They are believed to be 

123 



124 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

above the slow, laborious process of acquisition, and to 
emerge from innate qualities of the mind. 

This attitude prevails not only regarding literary ability, 
but also in the various branches of business, as in adver- 
tising and salesmanship. " Start into the work and if you 
have aptitude for it your ability will soon show itself," is 
the advice often given to young men. Recently one of 
the editors of a large city daily said to the writer that 
in his opinion young men should be taken directly from 
the high school into a newspaper office. If within a short 
time they give promise they should be retained. Other- 
wise it would be better to dismiss them and try others 
until the right ones are found. 

Certainly, no one will deny special aptitudes. Never- 
theless, this contempt for instruction reduces learning to 
its crudest, least intelligent expression. It is the animal 
method of blundering along, trying one device after another 
Until a mode of action has been hit upon that by chance 
secures the desired result. Little intelligence can be used 
in the selection of methods of procedure because the learner 
is not sufficiently acquainted with the work to judge their 
worth. He is like a traveller wandering around in the 
underbrush of a forest. He cannot see whither the many 
trails lead. Consequently, if he gets into the right path 
it is largely accidental. And this is exactly what happens 
to an uninstructed learner. He is confused by the under- 
brush of details. He cannot get a bird's-eye view. His 
methods of meeting difficulties are therefore fallen upon 
accidentally. If they accomplish the desired end they 
are adopted. In this way uneconomical and comparatively 
unproductive methods become habits. 

Charles Francis Adams is a splendid illustration of this 
confusion. His Autobiography 1 is a painful history of op- 
portunities unutilized because of incompetent guidance — 
a round peg always trying to get into a square hole, as he 
1 Boston and New York, 1916. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 125 

himself phrases it. That is just what the animal method 
of meeting problems and situations does. The only dif- 
ference is that animals in the wilds must remedy their 
serious mistakes or pay the penalty with their lives. Boys 
are protected, and thus their errors are continued. I do 
not remember having read so bitter an arraignment of 
unintelligent direction as Mr. Adams' enumeration of 
the mistakes of his childhood and youth. Probably his 
chief misfortune was that his family had money and social 
standing. He was kept in pedagogical preserving fluids. 
"I should now respect myself a great deal more," he 
writes, "if I had then rebelled and run away from home, to 
sea, or to the devil. Indeed, if I had had in me any ele- 
ment of real badness, or even recklessness of tempera- 
ment, it would have been fatally developed. But I wasn't 
bad or a daredevil; and I was born with a decided sense 
of obligation to myself and to others." Most of us would 
not rank Mr. Adams as low as he estimates himself. He 
certainly did not achieve that of which he was capable, 
and for this the unintelligent guidance to which he was 
subjected was responsible; but he was a distinguished 
failure. His mistakes seem to have been caused by un- 
wise advice and direction, which, of course, produce the 
same errors as lack of instruction. 

It is in the "self-made" men, however, that the animal 
•method of making progress is most clearly discernible. 
With them, except so far as advice puts them in the in- 
structed class, experience is gained by uncontrolled, and 
largely uncriticised, trial and error; and it is this absence 
of intelligent criticism that distinguishes the lower use of 
the trial-and-error method from the higher. Deficient 
knowledge because of a lack of preliminary study and in- 
struction leaves a weakened substructure for judgment. 
Under these conditions interpretation of situations is in- 
adequate, and experience is reduced to stereotyped opinion. 

A brief reference to the learning process of lower animals 



126 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

will show how much it has in common with the unin- 
structed learning of man. If an animal is confined in an 
enclosure with winding paths, all except one of which end 
in blind alleys, he will run about until by accident he finds 
the path that leads to the exit where food rewards suc- 
cess. Now, if again placed in the enclosure, the animal 
will not at once follow the direct path to the exit and food, 
but he will repeat many of his former errors. By degrees, 
however, he will finally learn to take the direct course to 
the food. We say that the animal has learned to get out 
of the enclosure. What actually has happened is that a 
connection— an association — has been formed between a 
situation consisting of confinement in an enclosure of defi- 
nite appearance and following a certain path to food. 
The situation favored or permitted various responses, the 
possibility of which was provided for in the instinctive 
equipment of the animal. The responses were made at 
first, without selection, and one of them happened to meet 
the requirements for reaching the exit and securing the 
food. Gradually the useless actions were eliminated, and 
the correct associations attained sufficient strength to 
produce the series of effective responses without error or 
delay. 

This same association can be established between ac- 
tions that have no necessary relation to one another. It 
is well known, for example, that dogs can readily be 
taught to sit, or stand on their hind legs, to obtain food. 
In the same way they may be trained to go to the corner 
of the enclosure farthest from the exit and turn around an 
exact number of times to secure food. The elements of 
these associations may also be increased so as to form a 
long series. Several connected enclosures may be made, 
and the animal may learn to pass from one to the other in 
quite different ways, pulling a string to open a trap-door 
in the first case, pushing up a lever in the second, climbing 
a ladder and going through a hole to reach the third enclo- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 127 

sure, and finally returning to the point of departure by a 
different route to find food awaiting him. In all of these 
cases the response is made directly to a given situation, 
without the intervention of ideas. A certain situation is 
associated with a given response. 1 

The absence of ideas means absence of thinking. No 
inferences are drawn. Change the setting to any great 
extent and the responses are likely to be disturbed, though 
the essential element in the situation — the one to which a 
definite response must be made to secure the desired re- 
sult — may be quite as conspicuous as before. In other 
words, the result is not connected with a certain action 
upon a given object. There is no recognition of cause and 
effect. It is interesting to observe, however, that some 
of the more highly developed among the lower animals 
seem to select and pay especial attention to those parts 
that are connected with the essential element, and changes 
in its location do not always disturb them. But this is 
probably due to persistent and strengthened association 
rather than to any discernment of the relation between 
cause and effect. 

Now, the prevalent opinion that man's method of learn-' 
ing is commonly different from that of the lower animals 
is unjustified. Animals learn by association. When one 
event follows another they assume that the succession will 
always occur. In some instances the response to such 
an occurrence becomes settled as an instinct. Chickens 
going to their roosts in the middle of the day during an 
eclipse of the sun is an illustration. For all the practical 
purposes of life such responses assume that the first event 
is the cause of the second. Now, it is not difficult to show 
that man employs this same associative learning more 

1 Those who wish to make a more detailed study of learning among the 
lower animals may consult Animal Behavior, by C. Lloyd Morgan; Behavior, 
by John B. Watson, and numerous reports of investigations in the journals 
for general and comparative psychology, especially the Journal of Animal 
Behavior. 



128 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

commonly than is supposed. Recent investigation 1 of the 
way in which he solves a maze problem has shown that 
"the rational processes reported were unsystematic and 
seemingly futile. Adequate interpretations were suggested 
to the learner as the result of prolonged exploration, rather 
than reasoned out. Cues which logically should be utilized 
for correct inferences were disregarded, and ideas were 
acted upon in an uncritical manner until they were proven 
by trial to be incorrect." If the word " rational' ' were 
omitted from this account the description would be such 
as might be written of animal learning. 

In those cases in which this process of associative learn- 
ing seems to carry the learner forward in his thinking, he 
assumes that he is reasoning. The difference between this 
pseudo-reasoning and the real thing is that reasoning, 
whatever else it means, requires that the essential element 
in a situation be selected from the mass of unessential fac- 
tors, and that its necessary connection with the result be 
discerned. "Associative reasoning" assumes that an ac- 
tion or other event which precedes the second has some 
necessary connection with it, as that of cause to effect. 

One need not go back to the belief in a necessary connec- 
tion between phases of the moon and sowing crops for an 
illustrative example of this sort of reasoning among human 
beings. The summer of 1 915 was cold and rainy through- 
out the central and eastern parts of the United States and, 
as will be recalled, the belief was quite prevalent that the 
unusual "weather" was caused by the firing of cannon on 
the battle-front of Europe. When this idea was first pro- 
mulgated by the "science editor" of certain newspapers the 
unintelligent accepted it and those better informed smiled. 
Later, however, when the low temperature and rain con- 
tinued, even intelligent people began to say: "After all, 
there may be something in it." This belief is, of course, 
the persistence in another form of the old superstition 
1 Fleming A. C. Perrin, Psychological Monographs, no. 70. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 129 

that rain can be caused by producing ai, artificial atmos- 
pheric disturbance. Naturally, "reason" did not give 
the same conclusion the following summer (19 16) when an 
unusually high temperature was recorded in those localities 
which were cold the year before, and when, though the 
firing was continuous, the rainfall was considerably less 
than usual. Of course the error is forgotten, and right 
here we find another characteristic of human learning com- 
mon to that of the lower animals. The latter quickly for- 
get an event unless it has been worked into their nervous 
system by repeated experiences or has become instinctive 
through natural selection. Were it not so, new devices 
would have to be frequently invented to trap them. In 
man, also, the same methods of "trapping" continue 
effective. 

The "Spanish swindle," which is a good illustration of 
repetition of the same deception, is so old as to have its 
origin almost lost in the past. Yet it still serves its pur- 
pose. In its simplest form it consists of information that 
a large sum of money awaits one in Spain. But a "small" 
amount is needed to secure the legacy. Again, the tricks 
of "wire-tapping" to obtain advance information about 
the winning horse, and other swindling devices, continue 
to succeed, even with those who know of them. Were it 
not for forgetfulness, swindlers would need to be geniuses 
at invention. But, as with the lower animals, the old 
tricks are usually as good as new ones. In man speedy 
forgetfulness is both a misfortune and a boon. The sor- 
rows of yesterday are submerged in the joys of to-day; 
and an important element in the psychology of the stock- 
market is that the pessimism of last week is forgotten in 
the present elation, though to-day's rise may be made 
to order. This human tendency to forget is of supreme 
importance in the psychology of learning, so far at least 
as what one learns through experience or otherwise is to 
be used in reasoning. 



130 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

In speaking of animal learning, it was observed that the 
particular action which produced the desired result was 
one of many. The others either opposed success or were 
indifferent to it. The successful movement, or series of 
movements, was not planned. It was not even consciously- 
selected. Given a continuous succession of more or less 
random movements, all directed toward a definite end, 
and some of them will be more effective than the others. 
Indeed, if the effort is persistent, the desired result will 
finally be attained. A fly is biting the cheek of a very 
young baby. Many random movements are made in the 
struggle to relieve the discomfort. At last one of these 
movements succeeds and the fly is brushed away. It is 
the same with the lower animals, and so it is with man in 
learning any act of skill. 

Now, a matter of the utmost importance in the psychol- 
ogy of learning has been noted in connection with the ran- 
dom movements to which reference has just been made. 
The successful movement is produced without any further 
conscious guidance or selection than is supplied by the 
general effort to attain a desired result. Learners, in acts 
of skill, suddenly find themselves employing definite meth- 
ods to meet certain difficulties. Quite commonly they do 
not know that they are using these methods until they 
notice that the difficulties are disappearing. There seems 
to be a competition of methods. Just how a selection of 
the efficient method occurs without conscious interference 
is not easy to say. 1 "What happens in such cases," ac- 
cording to Thorndike, "is that the response, by being con- 
nected with many situations alike in the presence of the 
element in question and different in other respects, is 
bound firmly to that element and loosely to each of its 

1 Those interested in the theoretical discussion of this question may con- 
sult, among other writers, the following: Edgar James Swift, American 
Journal of Psychology, vol. 14, p. 201 ; Edward L. Thorndike, Animal Intelli- 
gence: Experimental Studies, p. 264, and John B. Watson, Behavior, a 
Study in Comparative Psychology, chap. VII. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 131 

concomitants. Conversely, any element is bound firmly 
to any one response that is made to all situations contain- 
ing it, and very, very loosely to each of those responses 
that are made to only a few of the situations containing 
it." l 

The present writer, in the first report. 2 of his investiga- 
tion of the learning process, called attention to the fact 
that unconscious adoption of methods of procedure in acts 
of skill is fundamental in human learning. Later investi- 
gation of the writer 3 sustained this observation, and re- 
cently it has been verified by various investigators. 4 Be- 
cause of the importance of this principle, which may be 
called the law of unconscious adoption of method, it may 
be well to quote briefly from some of the later investigators. 
L. E. Ordahl, in her study of Consciousness in Relation to 
Learning, found that methods changed and improvements 
appeared without conscious control. Unconscious modi- 
fications were continually cropping out. Then, as con- 
sciousness was gradually freed from details, these modifi- 
cations were noticed, practised, and improved upon. 
Ruger observed that "a large percentage of the fortunate 
variations came altogether unpremeditatedly." And Book, 
in further verification of the present writer's original re- 
port, says that "a second significant fact about learning is 
that all adaptations and short cuts in method were uncon- 
sciously made. . . . The learners suddenly noticed that 
-they were doing certain parts of the work in a new and 
better way, then purposely adopted it in the future." 

Illustrations of this unconscious adaptation to work and 
games — the method of improvement in uninstructed learn- 

1 Educational Psychology, vol. 2, p. 44. 

3 American Journal of Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 218 Jf. 

3 Psychological Bulletin, vol. 1, p. 295. 

* W. F. Book, Bulletin no. 53, University of Montana, p. 95; William H. 
Batson, Psychological Monographs, no. 91; Louise Ellison Ordahl, American 
Journal of Psychology, vol. 22, p. 158; Henry A. Ruger, Archives of Psychol- 
ogy, no. 15. 



132 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

ing — will readily occur to the reader. The beginner in golf 
finds himself obliged to make various new muscular adap- 
tations of considerable delicacy. That a nice adjustment 
of muscles is necessary is shown by the exceedingly slow 
progress of the learner. There is probably more discour- 
agement in golf because of the intermittent and frequently 
indiscernible progress than in any other game. This means 
that the muscular tensions, contractions, force, etc., must 
be accurately gauged. Driving the ball in just the right 
direction and in a straight line, especially when the course 
is lined on either side with hazards or with natural obsta- 
cles, involves a nice adjustment and co-ordination of eye, 
hand, and arm muscles. These adjustments cannot even 
be named, much less consciously controlled. The most 
that one can do is to control the larger muscles — stand in 
the correct position, keep the head still, the eye on the 
ball, give the arms the right swing — and try to get the 
general effect. 

Every beginner knows how little all this accomplishes 
until the finer muscles have begun to make their uncon- 
scious adjustments; and no learner can designate the time 
when this occurs except as he, often to his surprise, sud- 
denly finds that his good plays are more dependable. In 
other words, the learner's attention — except for thought 
of the larger muscles — is upon the accomplishment of the 
purpose, upon the result. All of the fine adjustments and 
co-ordinations, and there are many, are made unconsciously 
in the general effort to achieve success. After these adap- 
tations have been made a sufficient number of times to 
acquire some degree of consistency, the learner observes 
them and then they are consciously adopted and perhaps 
improved upon. This is, of course, possible only in the 
case of such movements and tensions as can be singled out 
for control when once the adjustment has been made in- 
voluntarily. 

We have said that the law of unconscious adoption of 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 133 

method characterizes uninstructed learning. In a large 
degree it is also active when the learner is under instruc- 
tion. In golf, for example, the most that a teacher can 
do is to give general directions, and tell his pupil wherein 
he fails. This last is of special importance because one 
cannot observe oneself. Knowledge of failure, then, cen- 
tres the attention on definite details, such as the position 
of the hands in grasping the club, holding the head still, 
and keeping the eyes on the ball. The adjustment and 
other adaptations, however, must still be made uncon- 
sciously, except so far as one is attentive to the result and 
to the muscles that can be controlled voluntarily. And 
this is as it was in uninstructed learning. 

This law of unconscious adoption of method has been 
demonstrated only in acts of muscular skill. But the 
writer is convinced that it has much wider application. 
In entering upon new work, as in beginning the practice 
of law or engaging in salesmanship in a wholesale or retail 
house, one meets certain difficulties which must be over- 
come. It is not necessary that these troubles be so con- 
spicuous as to cause the learner to sit down and think them 
over and consciously decide upon a plan of action which 
he thereupon rigorously carries out. Indeed, in the 
writer's opinion, this is the exceptional mode of procedure. 
Serious and persistent reflection, involving as it does logi- 
cal thought, is, as we have seen, too difficult to be popular. 
Besides, successful thinking needs material upon which to 
work, and in situations involving human beings this raw 
material consists of knowledge of man's response in various 
social relations. Few men have this information, and its 
lack discourages thinking. A naturally hard task is thus 
rendered still more difficult. As a result men respond to 
any given situation in what may be called their natural 
way. That is, their individual peculiarities largely deter- 
mine their manner of response. They meet the difficulties 
unthoughtfully as they arise, much as they would in an 



134 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

act of muscular skill. A man suddenly finds that he is 
performing the details of his work, and acting in the pres- 
ence of certain situations, in very definite ways. The suc- 
cess of these responses, which the beginner has uncon- 
sciously adopted, will, of course, as in the case of muscular 
skill, depend upon his natural aptitude for the work in 
which he is engaged. 

Even before these forms of response to situations have 
been noted by the person who makes them, they have 
become habits of behavior. Unhappily, the person most 
concerned is usually the last to discover them. An in- 
vestigator 1 of teaching has demonstrated the advantage 
of an accurate shorthand report of everything said in the 
classroom by teacher and pupils. It is a remarkably valu- 
able critic of human behavior, and might well be adopted 
in business. If a salesman, for example, could read a ver- 
batim report of his conversation with his customers, he 
would obtain a picture of himself such as no critic could 
give. And it would be the most profitable moving-picture 
performance that he could attend. To be sure, shorthand 
and phonographic repetition of one's responses to situations 
would be much like gazing at one's own skeleton, but the 
view would enable one to clothe it more presentably on 
another occasion. 

The habits that grow out of the responses to situations 
will depend, among other things, upon the standard of 
efficiency set by the learner. If he is contented merely 
with accomplishing the task, any way that produces an 
approximate result will satisfy. Should he, on the other 
hand, take account of some of the other factors that make 
for efficiency, as quality combined with rapidity, his meth- 
ods or responses will vary until the standard toward which 
he is striving is attained. This flexibility in habits of 
performance presupposes an understanding of the signifi- 

1 The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction, by Romiett 
Stevens. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 135 

cance of the situation. For without this comprehension the 
standard of attainment will not be commensurate with its 
possibilities. High standards of achievement therefore 
demand an inquiring attitude — a state of mind which is 
continually looking for problems in the daily work. The 
inefficient teacher, business man, or salesman, is the one 
who is unable to distinguish the various problems in the 
general mass of details. For such a teacher the one ques- 
tion is that of order, of discipline, instead of the develop- 
ment of personalities. 

To a salesman of this type different customers present 
no interesting situations calling for varying responses. We 
see here, again, the need of preparation on the part of the 
learner to enable him to interpret situations— to see their 
meaning. The most conspicuous characteristic in the sales 
and advertising managers, before whom the writer has lec- 
tured, is their insistent demand for rules of action. Now 
rules of behavior imply uniformity in situations. They 
do not admit differences. They presuppose no problems. 

If the writer is correct in this brief analysis of human re- 
sponse to situations, it reveals again the vagueness, the 
uselessness many times, of "experience." For it is a 
truism that the experience of an individual is colored by 
his mode of response. And this is settled quite as much 
by a man's permanent and temporary "make-up" as by 
the situation with which he is confronted. The permanent 
characteristics, being chiefly inherited, are largely beyond 
control, but the temporary condition is, above all else, the 
attitude taken toward the several problems presented in 
the situation. This, again, explains why the same out- 
ward set of circumstances is experienced differently by 
various persons. Their response makes their experience. 
They see things differently as truly as do myopic people. 
And their feelings and interpretations vary because of 
their different visions. 

The significance of experience in learning is not merely 



136 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

that it is one phase of the process, but also that it deter- 
mines future experiences by fixing the attitude and method 
of approach to situations. A man is biassed by the opinions 
which he has formed as a result of previous experiences. 
Consequently, he does not approach the new with an open 
mind. He has acquired a certain mental "set" which per- 
verts his judgment. This is one of the reasons for the 
importance of instruction. For, after all, teaching con- 
sists largely in constructing and in reconstructing experi- 
ence. In the case of the more mature it is chiefly the 
latter. 

If the instances which have been cited are indicative of 
human action in general, they emphasize again the im- 
portant fact in adaptation and behavior, that man adopts 
the simplest method that will approximate the results 
which he wishes to gain, instead of examining ways and 
means with the view of finding the most efficient plan of 
action; and in thinking his procedure is the same. He 
accepts superficial evidence, assumes that things are as 
they appear to be. Therefore, if one event follows an- 
other, the first is accepted as the cause of the second. 
Consequently, when a given method in salesmanship or 
advertising is attended by success, the method is assumed 
to be good in all localities and on every occasion. Yet 
prevailing conditions may occasionally produce results, 
regardless of the quality of salesmanship or advertising. 
Since, however, this happy combination of circumstances 
is not likely to be reproduced, the man who does not 
understand them is beginning a career of failure. He does 
not see the meaning of action and response. He misun- 
derstands the human mind. He fails to comprehend the 
significance of behavior. In thinking and acting, chance 
thus creates disordered responses, the chance of poor in- 
struction or no instruction at all, and the chance of busi- 
ness tradition and opinions. It is the animal method on 
which human behavior has been grafted. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 137 

Turning now to learning in the narrower sense of gaining 
proficiency in some definite act of skill, we find that the in- 
vestigations have disclosed several facts of considerable 
moment in the psychology of learning. Typewriting is an 
unusually good illustration because it is typical of much 
of the work done by the younger men and women in busi- 
ness offices. Fortunately, several investigations have been 
made of the progress of beginners. 

Two different studies were undertaken by Hill and 
Rejall. 1 These experiments consisted of typewriting, on 
successive days, with occasional intermissions, first, the 
same 100-word paragraph, and second, a 300-word page of 
changing material. The practice was continued for five 
months. The measure of progress, in the one case, was 
the length of time required for writing the 100 words, and 
in the other the 300 words of new matter. The two strik- 
ing characteristics of the experiments were irregularity in 
the acquisition of skill and occasional delays in progress. 
The meaning of the irregularities is quite clear. Progress 
is rarely continuous. Some of these variations are caused 
by the physiological condition of the learner. He may 
not be "fit." A night out, slight digestive disturbance, or 
fitful sleep are sufficient to blunt the edge of one's feelings, 
and consequently to lower efficiency. At times, again, the 
learner feels splendidly, yet for some undiscoverable reason 
he is not able to get results. Every one has such days. 
But the physiological condition does not explain all of the 
irregularities in progress. A beginner in a new sort of 
work, or a new subject of study, advances for a time and 
then suddenly, and often unexpectedly, his progress is in- 
terrupted. He may work as hard as before, yet for some 
reason he does not advance. 

These periods of temporary arrest of progress are called 
plateaus in the curve of learning, and the investigation of 
the acquisition of skill in typewriting to which reference 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, vol. 20, p. 516. 



138 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

has just been made reveals several of them. 1 On the 25th 
of November, for example, one of the investigators wrote 
the 100-word selection in four minutes and seventeen sec- 
onds; but between that day and the 6th of December, 
inclusive, there were only three days when he reduced the 
time required for the task. On all the other days of the 
ten devoted to the work his record was either the same or 
worse than on the 25 th of November. One of these im- 
proved scores was only seven seconds better than the rec- 
ord for the 25th of November. It is quite evident, then, 
that we have here a period of arrest in progress. 

Intermittent improvement in score indicates the ten- 
dency of the learner, but he cannot yet be depended upon 
to maintain the record. In a longer or shorter period of 
time, however, the better score becomes a permanent ac- 
quisition. Barring occasional "off days," the learner now 
knows that he can make it. This new record becomes the 
centre, as it were, around which the score for a week or so 
is likely to oscillate. Sometimes the learner will do bet- 
ter, and again not so well, but he rarely falls back to an 
earlier lower level of accomplishment. Improvement is, 
therefore, usually intermittent. After hovering around a 
certain record for a time — in typewriting several days or a 
week — the learner goes forward. Then his new achieve- 
ment becomes the centre of variation until he is prepared 
to make a further advance. The following experience in 
golf, written by a friend, illustrates both retardation, which 
appears in the curve of progress as a plateau, and also 
temporary improvement, which, though not maintained, 
shows, nevertheless, the drift of the learning process. 

1 Professor Thorndike, who prepared the experiments for publication, says 
that the absence of "any clear plateaus or 'resting stages' is noteworthy." 
The explanation is that his curves were plotted from weekly averages. 
Whether plateaus would show themselves in such a curve depends, in large 
part, upon their distribution. In a curve plotted by days from Hill and 
Rejall's figures several plateaus extending from four to seven days are 
quite evident. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 139 

"I had played golf with unsatisfactory results for a year 
and a half and had succeeded in getting good control of 
the various irons, but I had acquired no certainty in driv- 
ing. In order to overcome this difficulty I had taken les- 
sons and had learned the theory so that it was at my 
command, but in practice the results were more often dis- 
astrous than good. I could not see any positive improve- 
ment from month to month in the certainty of my drive. 
One day I took my usual position for driving. Before 
making the attempt I thought over the directions for suc- 
cessful driving, and went through the act once, trying to 
just graze the ground, and following through with my 
club. Again I took my position. This time the move- 
ments were enlivened with the thought that I was going 
to hit the ball and see how far I could drive it. There was 
neither pull nor slice, and the ball went almost as straight 
as one could draw a line in the direction in which I had in- 
tended. The distance was about 160 yards. Again I took 
my place and added 20 yards to the drive. As many as 
fifteen consecutive drives were made, only one of which was 
defective, and the distance increased until it reached about 
200 yards. For several weeks I drove with equal success, 
in one case on links on which I had never played before. 
My longest drive was over 240 yards. After a number of 
weeks of successful driving I was playing one day, and for 
no apparent reason I topped the ball. Again and again, 
both that day and on subsequent days, I endeavored to 
recover the skill which I had lost in a way I could not ex- 
plain. Several months have passed, and I have not yet 
regained the successful drive which I acquired so suddenly 
and carried on so successfully for several weeks and then 
as suddenly lost. It seems to be a case of persistent re- 
tardation, but what I have done I can do again, some 
time." 

The writer has obtained the golf scores of an enthusi- 
astic player. They are his record for three consecutive 



140 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

years. The scores are given at the left of the curves. It 
will be observed that there is general progress from year to 
year, but the plays are irregular and plateaus are evident. 





MAR*. A£R, MAY JUNE JULY AUG. . SEPT. OCTV. NO/. 

1916 

GOLF SCORES 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 

140 



141 




APR. MAY JUNE JULY AUG. SEPT. 

1917 

GOLF SCORES 



The discussion of plateaus seems at times to reduce itself 
to a definition of the term. According to some, only those 
delays which can be measured by weeks are plateaus. Yet 
an arrest of visible progress during a number of days de- 
mands an explanation quite as much as retardation ex- 
tending through a month. If the cause cannot be found 
in the physical condition of the beginner, it must be sought 
in the complexity of the activity, in the aptness of the 
learner for the work, or in both. Now, periods of retarda- 
tion of longer or shorter duration are usually observable 
in most learning processes. They do not occur when the 
act of skill is so simple as to be at once mastered, and their 
location depends in large measure upon the nature of the 
work in which the learner is engaged. In beginning the 
study of psychology, for example, a long plateau quite 
commonly occurs about the end of the third or fourth 
week. In embryology, on the other hand, it is usually 
observed at the beginning of the course. 1 The difference 
between these two subjects of study suggests a possible 

1 These two curves may be seen in the author's Learning by Doing, pp. 
106, 108. 



142 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

explanation of these plateaus. In introductory psychol- 
ogy the first week or two is generally devoted to discussing 
a few fundamental facts. The new terms are not numer- 
ous. The effort of the teacher is devoted rather to laying 
the foundation by establishing the simpler principles. 
Consequently, there is little chance for confusion. In be- 
ginning embryology, however, a large number of new 
words and terms must be mastered at once. This natu- 
rally perplexes the student. His progress is therefore 
slower at the outset than in psychology. He drops almost 
immediately to a low level of efficiency which reveals itself 
in his curve of learning as a plateau. What, then, is the 
cause of this retardation? 

The present writer, from his study of the learning proc- 
ess in typewriting and in beginning the Russian language, 1 
concluded that these periods of arrest in progress are 
caused by the need of time for making associations auto- 
matic. In typewriting, for example, these associations 
consist in connections between the letters of words and 
the location of the corresponding keys of the typewriter. 
The learner, starting at the zero stage, advances rapidly 
at first. This initial rapid advance has been found true 
of all acts of skill and of subjects of study, in which a large 
mass of new material is not crowded upon the learner at 
the outset. The writer's investigation of the early stages 
in learning the Russian language, the curve of which is 
given below, shows the same characteristic. This curve 
of learning also indicates the effect of uninstructed learn- 
ing. It is much more irregular than would have been the 
case had the learner been aided by a teacher. 2 

Returning to typewriting, it is clear that after a certain 
very moderate degree of proficiency has been attained 

1 Psychological Bulletin, vol. i, p. 295, vol. 7, p. 149; Studies in Philosophy 
and Psychology (Garman Commemorative Volume), p. 297. 

J Those who wish more detailed information of the psychology of begin- 
ning a language may consult the author's Mind in the Making, p. 199. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 143 













































































































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5 10 15 20 25 80 35 40 45 50 65 60 65 70 75 

progress will be slower and gains will be roughly propor- 
tional to the strength of the connections between letters of 
words and their corresponding keys. Establishing these 
connections requires practice, and for this practice time is 



144 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

needed. There are, of course, different degrees of pro- 
ficiency, depending upon the firmness of the connection 
between letters and keys, and upon the rapidity with which 
the associations work. Quite soon the hand goes directly 
to the vicinity of the desired key, but a few seconds will be 
required to find the right one. Next the finger, directed 
by the eye, may strike the key at once, and finally the eye is 
unnecessary, the sense of location being a sufficient guide. 

This is a very sketchy description of the stages of learn- 
ing to use a typewriter, but it answers the purpose. There 
are different levels of efficiency, each of which must, so to 
speak, be consolidated before it is possible to rise to the 
next level. This consolidation requires practice, the 
amount needed depending upon the number of details to 
be mastered and upon their difficulty. In the case of cer- 
tain individuals especially adapted to a given piece of 
work, progress may be continuous to a high level of effi- 
ciency. There are children, for example, to whom the 
multiplication tables offer no difficulties. They learn them 
easily and accurately. Young salesmen may also be 
found, occasionally, who do not need to learn the art of 
selling goods. They know how to deal with men and can 
meet each emergency as it arises. But such children and 
such men are rare. The majority learn with effort, and 
from time to time they must stop to organize and reor- 
ganize what they have learned. 

The periods of arrest in progress — the so-called plateaus 
of the curve of learning — are, then, intervals for consoli- 
dating the information or skill won by the learner during 
his advance, but not well organized because he was too 
busy making gains. This cessation of progress, however, 
is only apparent. It is not a real arrest, for during this 
time the facts and information are being automatized for 
ready use. Progress seems to be delayed, because it can- 
not be measured and recorded so as to be visible to the 
eye. Loosely accumulated information is only partially 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 145 

usable. It comes to mind slowly and some of it does not 
come at all until it has been relearned. More than this, 
the meaning of facts grows as their connection with other 
facts is observed, and these new relationships give added 
significance to what one has learned, and make it more 
serviceable in one's thinking. This requires time — time 
for the nervous processes underlying the learning to be- 
come set and time for new nervous connections which are 
the basis of recalling ideas to be established and fixed. 

In the early stages of learning the real advance is there- 
fore made during the periods of seeming arrest of progress, 
because it is then that the consolidation of details is going 
forward. In acts of skill these details are the finer move- 
ments, together with the judgment of the amount and 
direction of muscular effort, and in subjects of study they 
include facts and ideas which must be both learned and 
organized. Progress during these plateau-periods assumes, 
of course, that the learner is a zealous worker. This ex- 
planation of these periods of apparent retardation is illus- 
trated by the experience of those who have spent several 
years in a foreign country trying to learn the language. 
The first rapid, though slight, advance is attended with a 
feeling of elation. This, however, is followed by a long 
period of discouragement. The best endeavors seem to 
bring no progress. The length of this plateau-period 
varies with different persons — with their aptitude and 
preparation for the language — but all feel its oppressive- 
ness. Now, an interesting feature of this plateau is the 
suddenness with which it often disappears. At times it 
seems to vanish in a night. The word-associations and 
peculiarities of thought-sequence had been automatized 
during the long period when no visible progress was being 
made. Beginners in golf, again, are only too familiar 
with the long period of discouragement when they seem to 
be making no advance. Perseverance finally brings results, 
but for a long time improvement is intermittent. 



146 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Evidence that these plateau-periods are days of automa- 
tization is found in the fact that they are always followed 
by a rapid advance. 1 Since this is a regular occurrence, it 
must be accounted for, and the explanation of the sudden 
advance seems to be that something has been going on, 
during the interval of apparent retardation, to make what 
has been learned more usable. These periods of delay in 
visible progress, then — assuming that the learner is work- 
ing faithfully and intelligently — are the days when real 
progress is being made, for during that time the skilful 
movements, or the material of knowledge, as the case may 
be, are being automatized for instant use. 

The latest investigation 2 of learning adds further evi- 
dence for the explanation of plateaus as periods of automa- 
tization. Batson concludes from his experiments that 
when progress requires the organization of different move- 
ments into a unit, plateaus represent the time needed to 
establish this serial and unitary combination. In other 
words, a plateau is the visible expression of the time needed 
to master or automatize the chain of associated movements 
which, so long as they require individual attention, pro- 
duce temporary retardation. Book also seems to accept 
the principle of automatization when he says that "it 
takes some time for the new way of writing" [on the type- 
writer] "to become sufficiently automatic to allow part of 
the attention to forge ahead in quest of more economical 
methods." 3 The length of the plateau, excluding physical 
conditions, ennui, etc., will depend upon the number and 
difficulty of the details which must be co-ordinated and 
automatized, that is, upon the complexity of the work. 
Automatization, as has been said, means mastering details 
sufficiently to make them readily usable. These details 
consist of whatever is essential to success in the work upon 

1 Psychological Bulletin, vol. 7, p. 153. 

1 W. H. Batson, Psychological Monographs, no. 91. 

3 University of Montana Bulletin, no. 53, p. 155. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 147 

which the learner is engaged. If progress requires that 
separate movements be combined into a series, this serial 
activity must be practised until the learner need not attend 
to the separate movements; but this is one phase of automa- 
tization. 

Complexity, however, is not merely a matter of the 
activities involved. It is not wholly an objective condi- 
tion. So far as successful accomplishment is concerned — ■ 
and this is the psychological problem — the ease or diffi- 
culty with which an individual masters the movements 
makes them for him, at least, either simple or complex. 
Plateaus do not occur in every learning process. It is 
doubtful, indeed, whether they are inevitable in every 
objectively complex process. It is quite conceivable that 
a learner may have such aptitude for a feat of skill as to 
master its complexities without any retardation. This 
was true of one of the subjects of the writer's experiments 
in tossing and catching two balls with one hand; and this 
is a fairly complex activity. At the same time plateaus 
are the rule, and the more complex the combined move- 
ments the more likely they are to occur. 

The question may well be asked, however, whether these 
characteristics of learning are true in the case of those pre- 
paring to do the world's work. Experiments in the psy- 
chological laboratory are sometimes thought to be so arti- 
ficial and unreal as to be of little value for the outside 
world of action. Fortunately, tests of those engaged in 
the world's work have been made, and they have verified 
and enlarged the results obtained in the laboratory. Some 
of them may be briefly considered. 

Investigation of learning over long periods of time, for 
example, until, as we say, the apprentice has learned his 
trade, shows that finally a level is reached above which 
the man does not rise without putting strenuous effort 
into his work. This exceptional effort is rarely expended 
unless new demands and responsibilities are put upon him. 



148 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The study of telegraph-operators by Bryan and Harter 1 
showed that a new increase in the rapidity of receiving and 
sending messages begins after an operator is transferred 
from an unimportant office to the main line. There are, of 
course, individual differences in the possible rate and range 
of improvement, but few reach the limit of their ability. 
This is a phase of the human tendency not to expend un- 
necessary energy, to which reference was made in an earlier 
chapter. Man does not exert himself needlessly. That 
which produces a result satisfactory to the demands of the 
occasion is good enough. 

Aschaffenburg, 2 again, tested four skilled typesetters, 
with nine, eleven, twenty-one, and twenty-six years' ex- 
perience, respectively, and found that, under the stimulus 
of competition and observation they made a marked im- 
provement in the quantity of type set during the four days 
in which they were tested. A new stimulus was applied 
and their level of production was raised. It is improbable 
that these typesetters were exceptional. Indeed, evidence 
has been found 3 which shows quite conclusively that even 
with adults who think that they are doing their best, 
slight incentives materially increase the output. Further, 
Wright's investigation has demonstrated experimentally 
that "through the continued use of a stimulus not sufficient 
to call forth their strongest efforts the subjects accepted 
the same as a standard, and when they were deprived of 
this standard objectively, its subjective influence still per- 
sisted to such an extent that the total accomplishments 
of the subject were materially lessened." 

This investigation is experimental proof of the tendency 
to minimum effort of which we have already spoken. It 
shows that man accepts as a standard of efficiency the 
demands of the situation confronting him — that he is sub- 

1 Psychological Review, vol. 4, p. 27, and vol. 6, p. 345. 
1 Kraepelin's Psychologische Arbeiten, vol. 1, p. 608. 
' W. R. Wright, Psychological Review, vol. 13, p. 23. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 149 

ject to false limits of production and achievement, which 
he erroneously thinks represent his ability. This is prob- 
ably true not merely of employees but also of managers. 
Indeed, observation has led the writer to believe that a 
good part of the inefficiency of employees reduces finally 
to the inefficiency of those who direct them. Most men 
are upon levels of production above which they could rise 
if the right stimulus were applied. Of course one may feel 
that it is not worth the effort, but in that case change 
of occupation is probably desirable. The human tragedy 
is to settle down, contented, into the animal method of 
mere adaptation. Rather, find something worth while, 
then decide upon a definite plan of action instead of drift- 
ing into the line of least resistance and expending the 
minimum amount of effort that will meet the needs of 
the situation. It is supremely important to find some- 
thing that one feels is worth one's best efforts. Then 
learning may be carried to the highest level of which an 
individual is capable. "Something worth while" assumes 
an end for which one zealously strives. 

This lack of a purpose or end in the work of children has 
been mentioned by Dewey as one of the causes of ineffi- 
ciency in the schools. Questions are asked and problems 
given, the answer to which the teacher is assumed to know. 
There is no incentive to achievement except the arti- 
ficial one of rivalry in rapid work. The answers are 
known, there is no opportunity for disagreement, no 
mental stimulation of discovery. The difference between 
the dearth of interest under these conditions and in the 
presence of a real problem to be worked out, with an end 
that is worth while, was shown in a country school. There 
were no books for the English class — the eighth grade — 
so the teacher 1 decided to let the children "write a book." 
Each week's composition was to be a "chapter," describ- 
ing an "adventure" of the hero. Here was a real end, 

1 Miss Claudia Lide, a graduate of Washington University. 



ISO PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

something worth doing, something in which originality had 
free play; and the result far exceeded expectations. In- 
stead of the usual stupid "compositions" culled from en- 
cyclopaedias, these children put their best efforts into the 
work. Unused reservoirs of ability were tapped, and some 
of the productions were so good as to be accepted for pub- 
lication by editors of magazines with departments for chil- 
dren's stories. 

It is commonly thought that the work of adults differs 
from that of children by this distinction of an end. Un- 
fortunately, this is often not the case. The increased or 
improved production reveals the difference when a vital 
end or purpose lures the worker on. Thomas Huxley 
hated composition until he reached an age when he had 
something that he wanted to say, and Harriet Martineau 
says of herself: "I was the first of my family who failed in 
handwriting; and why I did remained unexplained. I am 
sure I tried hard; but I wrote a vulgar, cramped, untidy 
scrawl till I was past twenty — till authorship made me 
forget manner in matter and gave freedom to my hand." 
The explanation is that no purpose stirred her till the in- 
centive of authorship took possession. Incidentally, it 
was observed that the class in the country school, to which 
reference has been made, improved markedly in the ap- 
pearance and neatness of their writing under the stimulus 
of "writing a book." An end that appeals to the learner 
as worth while is closely related to Thorndike's theory of 
the influence of satisfaction and annoyance. "In playing 
golf," he says, "the satisfyingness of the sight of one's 
ball speeding down the course spreads to make the way 
one held and moved the club a little more satisfying as a 
response to the situation which provoked the stroke." 1 
Improvement, to be permanent, must result finally in cer- 
tain habits which constitute the form, tensions, and move- 
ments; and satisfaction certainly promotes habit forma- 

1 Educational Psychology, vol. 2, p. 188. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 151 

tion. Certain obstructions, however, are likely to be in 
the way. 

Monotony is perhaps the most insidious obstacle to 
progress. It is hard to raise the lower grades of work to 
the level of achievements. "Begin at the bottom" is a 
good business proposition. It is also psychological. Man, 
however, is restless at the bottom. The details do not 
interest him. Americans, at least, are not much impressed 
with the importance of beginnings. Were proof of this 
feeling necessary it could be supplied in abundance from 
our numerous "finish-quick" institutions. The most that 
can be said in favor of such places is that they do what 
they promise. They finish their students and they do it 
quickly. The short and altogether inadequate courses in 
medicine, law, and commerce to which young men flock 
instead of going to well-equipped schools are cases in 
point. The degree or license to practice is the important 
attainment, as they view it, not knowledge, training, and 
skill. 

In business probably the most effective antidote for 
monotony is to make an outlet for success. Blind alleys 
in occupations are discouraging and discouragement gen- 
erates drudgery. No visible outlet to one's work, and 
discouragement, are the conditions that breed monotony. 
The selection of an occupation is, of course, a supremely 
important matter, and vocational guidance will justify it- 
self if it merely starts boys and girls to thinking about the 
vocation in which they would like to engage. As a mat- 
ter of fact, however, it does much more. 

Closely related to monotony is the effort that goes into 
one's work. Maximum effort is a variable quantity, even 
in the same person. Temporary "fitness," fatigue from 
any cause, emotional disturbance, bad air or high tem- 
perature lessen the output if not the effort itself. Some 
of these matters are beyond the control of managers, but 
not so with the office or factory air; and business men 



152 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

have not given enough attention to ventilation. In those 
cases in which the output has been measured under vary- 
ing conditions of temperature and humidity, these factors 
have been found significant. Educators have already 
learned this, but business men have not acted upon the 
discovery. Human energy is as much a matter of physi- 
cal and physiological conditions as of the wish to achieve. 
It is easy to drop into a state of partial relaxation. This, 
again, is a phase of adaptation; and external conditions 
should be studiously planned to promote work. 

To relax is human. It is an expression of racial indo- 
lence. Civilized man is kept at a prolonged high level of 
activity by the incentives of civilization. The motives 
are always personal, and prominent among them is the 
desire to better one's condition. Remove the hope of 
advancement and effort drops to an easier level. But the 
psychology of habit also plays an important role here. 
There is always an inclination to return to a lower order 
of habits. In learning the touch method on the type- 
writer, for example, one tends to fall back upon sight. It 
is easier. Consequently, beginners in any line of work 
should maintain a high degree of alertness until efficient 
habits become automatic. Then effort is not required to 
carry them out. 

One way of doing a thing is not harder than another. 
It is habit that makes the difference. Any unhabitual 
movement, or series of movements, is difficult. Change of 
habits involves strain, muscular or mental. Flexibility is 
subject to the same physiological restraints. Effort must 
therefore be severe and continuous until the new habits 
that further a higher order of skill are established. The 
prolonged training needed to produce soldiers is a matter 
of "fixing" habits. So long as there is danger of dropping 
back into former modes of action, so long as a given situa- 
tion does not produce the definite military response, little 
reliance can be placed upon the men. They must be 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 153 

trained until they cannot think or act in other terms than 
those of the soldier; and this thinking and acting must be 
instantaneous. It must be reflex. "Seasoned veterans" 
means this as much as it signifies hardened muscles. Such 
training is only carrying the automatization of complex 
habits of response to given situations to the highest level 
of efficiency. 

What, then, is the function of instruction in learning? 
The usual idea of instruction is that it consists in possess- 
ing and imparting the requisite knowledge. This, how- 
ever, is the lowest conception of the art. It ignores the 
mental condition of the recipient and assumes that a given 
morsel of knowledge is equally important to different per- 
sons and to the same individual at the varying stages of 
his progress. The same knowledge, however, has different 
carrying power according to the time when it is imparted. 
Difficulties arise in an act of skill or subject of study as the 
learning proceeds. These difficulties present problems, and 
the learner is keen for the solution. This is the moment 
when the needed information is welded into knowledge by 
the learner because his mind is at white heat. He sees its 
use and he applies it. With the best instruction progress 
is uneven, with mediocre, even though the instructor be 
learned in the matter, the inequality is immensely in- 
creased. 

Irregularity in progress is not due merely to physical 
conditions to which reference has been made. Progress is 
usually by sections. Certain efficient habits are acquired, 
while others equally important lag behind. The writer 
has recently observed this in golf. He has been trying 
for months to assume the right form, to keep his eye on 
the ball, to hold his head still, to avoid pulling or slicing, 
and to follow through. A few days ago he observed, for 
the first time, that his eyes remained glued to the ball, 
and this acquisition has persisted. Yet the other no less 
important acts remain unlearned. Inquiry among friends 



154 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

has given corroborative evidence. Their experience has 
convinced them that certain habits essential to the game 
are acquired, while others no less needful for success re- 
main stationary. The mental attitude is, of course, im- 
portant. Young Richard was quite right when he advised 
little Una, who was struggling to control her fork at her 
first dinner-party, to keep her mind on her knife and let 
the fork take care of itself. "Then I began to succeed," 
she said later, looking back. "The fork was as meek as a 
lamb if I paid no attention to it." x The same observation 
has been made by a music-teacher who says to her pupils, 
after something has been clearly shown and unsuccessfully 
attempted: " Stop trying, and it will do itself." 2 

The mental attitude, however, has a much wider reach. 
There are several ways in which it may influence progress 
in learning. Belief that the goal is unattainable, uncriti- 
cised and unjustified assumptions regarding the meaning 
or nature of the work, cause delay and perhaps ultimate 
failure, while confidence and a mind unhampered by hasty 
conclusions favor progress. All of these attitudes and 
still others have been found in learners, and their effect 
upon the curve of learning has been experimentally tested. 
The scientific attitude of examining a problem before draw- 
ing conclusions, and then of holding these convictions ten- 
tatively so that they may be readily changed, as further 
examination suggests new view-points, is essential to prog- 
ress. Assumptions, perhaps accidentally made, become 
intrenched before the learner is aware of it, and distort his 
judgment. Ruger 3 found that "in general, the solutions" 
_[of problems] "were not the result of mere straightaway 
thinking, and the consequent formulation of a thorough- 
going plan of action, but were the outcome of an extremely 
complex interrelation of more or less random impulses 

1 Una Mary, by Una Hunt, p. 33. 

* The Psychology of Religion, by Edwin D. Starbuck, p. 117. 

3 Op. cit. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 155 

and ideas." Incentives are also important, because, as 
Wright has shown, they act as a mental stimulant. 

Here also belongs the "spirit" of the office, shop, fac- 
tory, or school. The significance of the group sentiment, 
both in learning and in getting results, can hardly be over- 
stated. It rules with irresistible force. In schools it must 
be secured as an ally or the work is a failure; and in busi- 
ness it means stagnation followed by bankruptcy, or the 
enthusiasm that sweeps aside all obstacles. There must, 
however, be something worth getting enthusiastic over. 
Group sentiment needs content or it is like the super- 
heated air of which one hears in slang. The hurrah method 
is empty. When, on the other hand, ideals and purposes 
with carrying power arouse emotions, and the whole is 
welded into a sentiment that tolerates no inefficiency, abili- 
ties previously unknown even to their possessor are brought 
into action. There is nothing that so stirs a young man 
as the feeling which accompanies the belief that he is an 
essential part of a great organization. In the retail busi- 
ness this feeling pervades the store and gives to it a dis- 
tinctive tone; and in the factory it means a greater and 
better output. Yet the increased production is accom- 
plished with less than the usual fatigue, because the men- 
tal attitude raises the work above a task. Further, this 
alertness has been found to be the truest guide in the con- 
scious and unconscious selection of methods in the learning 
process. 

But with all the organization for efficiency there still 
remains one factor which cannot be organized out; and 
that is the element of time. It is not for practice alone 
that time is needed. We shall find later that distributed 
study yields better results than concentrated work, and 
Strong 1 has shown that moderate distribution of observa- 
tions of advertisements makes a more lasting impression 

1 Edward K. Strong, Jr., Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific 
Methods, vol. n, p. 124. 



156 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

than concentrated observations. When four advertise- 
ments of one firm "are seen within a few minutes of each 
other, the four create an impression that is 82 per cent 
superior to that created by one advertisement. When 
the four advertisements are seen at intervals of a week the 
four create an impression 90 per cent greater than did 
one." The intervals between the advertisements may, of 
course, be too long. So Strong found that when the in- 
terval was lengthened to one month the impression from 
the four advertisements fell to 45 per cent more than that 
from one advertisement. 

Nerve-cells, when stimulated, continue their activity after 
the stimulation has ceased. At least this seems to be the 
explanation demanded by the observed facts. Applying 
this to a learner's task in any field, if the study of new 
material is continuous, or if an apprentice seeks to cover 
ground too rapidly, details accumulate faster than they 
can be organized and consolidated. Stating it in cerebral 
terms, the nervous processes that persist after practice or 
study do not have time to do their work and become "set." 
Time itself is evidently a factor in learning. 

In acts of skill requiring automatization of movements 
this need of time has been approximately determined, and 
there is no reason to believe that learning to meet human 
situations — to judge human behavior — differs in this re- 
spect. To be sure, in the latter case associations that 
have not been noticed may produce the helpful inferences, 
but the fact still remains that these inferences come only 
after the lapse of time, and not infrequently when the 
learner's mind is engaged with quite different thoughts. 
Consequently, explanation of these inferences by unno- 
ticed associations still leaves open the question of their 
origin. The answer, again, is the continued activity of 
nerve-cells. Mental processes are dependent upon the 
nervous system. If there are disembodied minds hover- 
ing about, psychology knows nothing of them. Association 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 157 

of ideas is primarily a connection or relationship between 
the activity of nerve-centres and the resulting nervous 
processes. This relationship is such that when two brain 
processes occur simultaneously or in succession, the activ- 
ity of one tends to excite the other. 

Association, again, is a mental fact for the sole reason 
that it is a physiological fact. Assuming, then, as modern 
psychology does assume, that mental processes never take 
place unattended by nervous action which is essential to 
their occurrence, we seem forced to the view of a gradual 
decrease of this nervous activity, and with it a correspond- 
ing diminution of the correlated mental processes, until 
the nervous activity is of so low an intensity that we have 
what, for want of a better name, has been called the organic 
correlate of remembering, associating, etc. There is no 
other escape from the assumption that "mind" was in- 
serted, de novo, at some stage of the developmental process, 
and this certainly no evolutionist is willing to admit. 

This view of the decreasing intensity of nervous activity 
leads, of course, to subconscious nervous processes, some of 
which may yield results available for consciousness. This 
transmarginal field "contains, for example," James once 
said, 1 "such things as all our momentarily inactive memo- 
ries, and it harbors the springs of all our obscurely mo- 
tived passions, impulses, likes, dislikes, and prejudices. 
Our intuitions, hypotheses, fancies, superstitions, persua- 
sions, convictions, and in general all our non-rational 
operations, come from it." 

The writer is aware that subconscious, or extramarginal, 
mental processes have been in some dispute because of the 
vagarious conclusions which unscientific writers have 
drawn. The belief in some sort of activity outside (be- 
yond or below) the personal consciousness has recently, 
however, become scientifically respectable. 2 Different 

1 The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 483. 

2 See Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 22-58. 



158 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

names are applied to it, and the views of its nature are 
various, but there is general agreement that in some way 
it exerts an influence upon the personal consciousness, 
affecting opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. It 
cannot be otherwise, for cerebral localization and the 
modern view of mental diseases, indeed all of brain physi- 
ology, are unintelligible except on some theory of psycho- 
physical parallelism, and the latter in turn necessarily 
assumes extramarginal processes. Since their occurrence 
and connection with the facts of consciousness, rather than 
their nature, is the important consideration for our pres- 
ent purposes, it does not matter whether they are called 
"physiological cerebration" or "subconscious mental proc- 
esses." Now that the existence of extramarginal proc- 
esses has been admitted, if somewhat hesitatingly, it is 
not necessary to refer to the unusual instances of crystal 
vision, automatic writing, and hypnotism for illustrations 
of their integrative activity. A few days frequently clears 
the most perplexing problems, though the person may 
have been guiltless of thinking of them except as they 
occasionally emerged above the level of consciousness only 
to disappear again as the work in hand proceeded. The 
sales manager of a large wholesale house recently gave the 
writer the following bit of personal experience : 

"A few weeks ago I had occasion to make a quotation on 
a large quantity of goods. The prospective sale amounted 
to about $200,000. In using a table to arrive at the fig- 
ures for the unit of the product upon which I was quot- 
ing, I found the price figure so high that I used half the 
price. I also found the size so large that I used half the 
size. When I made my computation I doubled one figure 
but forgot to double the other. The result was a price about 
half of what it should have been per thousand. These 
prices were accordingly wired to two different companies 
in the afternoon. The articles quoted on were new to us 
and, consequently, there was nothing to arouse suspicion 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 159 

in my mind regarding the inaccuracy of the prices. On 
going to my home in the evening I found company, and, 
after passing a pleasant evening, I retired about eleven 
o'clock, without having thought of the transaction or of 
the price, so far as I can recall. Certainly no doubt arose 
in my mind concerning the accuracy of the figures that I 
had quoted. In the night I awoke suddenly — I afterward 
noticed that it was about one o'clock — house quiet and 
lights out. I pushed the electric button and started for 
the telephone, realizing instantly that I had committed 
an error of many thousands of dollars on the wrong side of 
the ledger." 

The cerebral processes apparently do their share toward 
the organization, clarification, and automatization of de- 
tails, if the material is put clearly before the mind. "A 
man's conscious wit and will," James once wrote, "so far 
as they strain toward the ideal, are aiming at something 
only dimly and inaccurately imagined. Yet all the while 
the forces of mere organic ripening within him are going 
on toward their own prefigured result, and his conscious 
strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the 
scenes, which in their way work toward rearrangement; 
and the rearrangement toward which all these deeper 
forces tend is pretty surely definite, and definitely different 
from what he consciously conceives and determines. It 
may consequently be actually interfered with {jammed, as 
it were, like the lost word when we seek too energetically 
to recall it) by his voluntary efforts slanting from the true 
direction." l And again, referring to this subconscious 
organization of knowledge and experience, James contin- 
ues, the extramarginal field, "whatever else it may be, is 
at any rate a place now admitted by psychologists to 
exist for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible experi- 
ence (whether inattentively or attentively registered), and 
for their elaboration according to ordinary psychological 

1 The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 209. 



160 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

or logical laws into results that end by attaining such a 
'tension' that they may at times enter consciousness with 
something like a burst." l This is probably the explana- 
tion of sudden revelations, like the thought of natural 
selection. "The idea came to me," says Alfred Russel 
Wallace, "as it had come to Darwin, in a sudden flash of 
insight; it was thought out in a few hours — was written 
down with such a sketch of its various applications and 
developments as occurred to me at the moment — then 
copied on thin letter-paper and sent off to Darwin — all 
within one week." 2 

The great majority of our judgments and "intuitions" 
are obtained by this unconscious interaction of extra- 
marginal, cerebro-mental processes; and the function of 
the "reason" is rather that of criticising the ideas and be- 
liefs which come to us, as Alfred Russel Wallace once 
said, "We hardly know how or whence" and of reinforcing 
those that stand the test. The human mind is at best a 
very imperfect instrument for thinking. Aside from this 
imperfection, however, all the data cannot be accumulated 
at will within a set period. Much of it comes to us unex- 
pectedly through associations started in the marginal and 
extramarginal region during the lapse of time. "The con- 
clusions at which I have from time to time arrived," says 
Herbert Spencer, 3 "... have been arrived at unawares — 
each as the ultimate outcome of a body of thought which 
slowly grew from a germ. Some direct observation or 
some fact met with in reading would dwell with me, ap- 
parently, because I had a sense of its significance. . . . 
Apt as I thus was to lay hold of cardinal truths, it would 
happen occasionally that one most likely brought to mind 
by an illustration, and gaining from the illustration fresh 
distinctiveness, would be contemplated by me for a while, 

1 Op. cit., p. 236. 

* Letters and Reminiscences, by James Marchant, vol. I, p. 113. 

* Autobiography, vol. I, p. 463. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 161 

and its bearings observed. A week afterward, possibly, 
the matter would be remembered; and with further thought 
about it might occur a recognition of some wider applica- 
tion than I had before perceived. . . . Again, after an 
interval, perhaps of a month, perhaps of half a year, some- 
thing would remind me of that which I had before re- 
marked; and mentally running over the facts might be fol- 
lowed by some further extension of the idea. When accu- 
mulation of instances had given body to a generalization, 
reflection would reduce the vague conception at first 
framed to a more definite conception; and perhaps diffi- 
culties or anomalies passed over for a while but eventually 
forcing themselves on attention, might cause a needful 
qualification and a truer shaping of the thought. . . . 
And thus, little by little, in unobtrusive ways, without 
conscious intention or appreciable effort, there would grow 
up a coherent and organized theory." 

Evidently, the organizing activity of brain and mind, 
below the level of consciousness, is an ally of no mean 
worth, provided the mind is supplied with the material 
upon which to work. Merely loading it with facts, how- 
ever, does not produce the result. In reading or studying, 
the subject-matter should be systematized to the best of 
the learner's ability. Questions and problems must be 
clearly thought if the mind is to do its share toward fur- 
nishing the solution. Whatever thinking one does should 
be orderly. A clear-cut error may lead to truth, but men- 
tal confusion never. Force a conclusion or belief back 
against the wall, doubt its accuracy, cross-examine it, tear 
its inferences from it; then leave it to its fate, and before 
many days its truth or falsity will be revealed; and this 
subconscious cerebral activity is of inestimable importance 
for learning so far, at least, as knowledge, experience, preju- 
dices, and "intuitions" bear upon our present opinions or 
the acquisition of new view-points. 

Learning, then, we have found to be largely an uncon- 



162 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

scious process. In acts of manual skill new ways of secur- 
ing results are happened upon accidentally and adopted. 
The learner then becomes conscious of their value for the 
work in hand. It is the trial-and-error method, in which 
the useless movements are gradually eliminated. 

In mental activities the same unconscious adoption of 
methods of improvement is observable; and in thinking 
we tend to accept the ideas, beliefs, and opinions which 
surround us. The conventional views of "our set" are 
compelling; but "our set" is not altogether local. It in- 
cludes those of our social standing, respectability, con- 
servatism or radicalism, with whose views we are con- 
stantly confronted in the newspapers that we take and 
the books which we read. 

Efficiency requires that the selection of ways and means, 
as well as of ideas and beliefs, be more conscious and in- 
telligent. Methods of improvement will continue to come 
accidentally, for this is the nature of the learning process. 
We should, however, be critical in accepting and adopting 
them, since only in this way can progress be continuous. 

Intervals of cessation of progress are likely to occur in 
complex acts of manual skill, and at this time practice is 
especially important. The mind should be active during 
the practice, in order that errors may be more quickly 
eliminated and the most effective improvements chosen. 

There should be periods of rest in everything — in manual 
skill that the movements may become "set," and in men- 
tal activity to give new ideas a chance to assert themselves. 
A man who continuously works at white heat will not 
secure the results that will be obtained by one who stops 
at times to deliberate. An efficiency expert once told the 
manager of a large business that his chief defect was lack 
of leisure moments in which calmly to view his problems. 
This expert, by observing many men, had discovered one 
element of efficiency which psychologists have found in 
their laboratory experiments. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING 163 

Finally, a man having acquired a degree of efficiency 
that meets the minimum requirements of his position and 
enables him to hold it, settles down at that level. He 
may be capable of much greater achievements, but the 
situation does not demand more energy. So he does not 
expend it. We cease to form new habits when no incen- 
tives for improvement stir us; and the amount of mental 
energy expended is as much a habit as is the quantity of 
physical energy applied to doors with check attachments. 
There is always adaptation to the needs of situations, but 
parsimony continually operates. We thus act below our 
ability unless the conditions force exceptional effort. 



CHAPTER V 
FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 

Muscular and mental activity are always accompanied 
by liberation of energy and disintegration of tissue. A 
man gives out more than three and one-half times as much 
carbon dioxide per minute when walking at the rate of 
two miles an hour than when asleep. If his pace is quick- 
ened to three miles an hour he discharges more than five 
times as much, and when working in a treadmill nine times 
as much is given out as when asleep. 

This making and remaking of the tissues of the body is 
a continuous process during life. "Did we possess some 
optic aid," says Foster, "which should overcome the gross- 
ness of our vision, so that we might watch the dance of 
atoms in this double process of making and unmaking in 
the living body, we should see the commonplace, lifeless 
things which are brought by the blood, and which we call 
food, caught up into and made part of the muscular whorls 
of the living muscle, linked together for a while in the in- 
tricate figures of the dance of life, giving and taking energy 
as they dance, and then we should see how, loosing hands, 
they slipped back into the blood as dead, inert, used-up 
matter. In every tiny block of muscle there is a part 
which is really alive, there are parts which are becoming 
alive, there are parts which have been alive but are now 
dying or dead; there is an upward rush from the lifeless to 
the living, a downward rush from the living to the dead. 

"This is always going on, whether the muscle be quiet 
and at rest or whether it be active and moving. Whether 
the muscle be at rest or be moving, some of the capital of 
living material is always being spent, changed into dead 
waste, some of the new food is always being raised into 

164 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 165 

living capital. But when the muscle is called upon to do 
work, when it is put into movement, the expenditure is 
quickened, there is a run upon the living capital, the 
greater, the more urgent the call for action. Moreover, 
under ordinary circumstances, the capital is spent so 
quickly, during the action, that it cannot be renewed at 
the same rate; the movement leaves the muscle with an 
impoverished capital of potential stuff, and a period of 
rest is needed in order that the dance of atoms of which I 
just now spoke may make good the loss of capital and 
restore the muscle to its former power." * 

Drawing on the capital of living matter, if the expendi- 
ture be in excess of production, brings fatigue. The causes 
of fatigue are chemical conditions resulting from changes 
within the organism. Certain substances essential to the 
activity of the protoplasm have been consumed in this 
activity, and waste products have accumulated. Oxygen 
and carbohydrates have been consumed. The chief source 
of the energy of muscles is carbohydrates. Experimen- 
tally, it has been shown that removal of most of the carbo- 
hydrates from the body of an animal produces symptoms 
of fatigue without exercise. Recovery may be brought 
about by feeding sugar. It is well known that mountain- 
eers, and soldiers on a long march, are greatly strengthened 
by eating chocolate. Oxidation of carbohydrates results 
in the production of certain substances which act as poisons 
to the body. They are spoken of as "fatigue substances." 
Two of these substances, carbon dioxide and lactic acid, 
investigation has shown, are hostile to protoplasmic ac- 
tion. When present in considerable quantity they weaken 
the sensibility of muscle and diminish its response. A 
muscle so affected requires more prodding for a given 
piece of work. Indeed, a muscle treated with either of 
these substances is "fatigued" without having done any 
work. 

1 Michael Foster, Nineteenth Century, vol. 34, p. 337. 



166 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Fatigue, according to Starling, 1 probably depends upon 
two factors: First, upon "the consumption of the contrac- 
tile material" [of the muscle] "or of the substances available 
for the supply of potential energy to this material," and 
second, upon "the accumulation of waste products of con- 
traction." 2 Although "a state which cannot be distin- 
guished from fatigue can be produced in fresh muscles, by 
the injection of aqueous extract of the fatigued muscles 
of another animal," 3 and although "fatigue may be arti- 
ficially induced in a muscle by 'feeding' it with a dilute 
solution of lactic acid, and again removed by washing 
out the muscle with normal saline solution containing a 
small percentage of alkali," 4 fatigue is not primarily in 
the muscles. This is proved by the fact "that direct 
stimulation of muscle will cause contraction after the syn- 
apse between nerve and muscle has lost its excitability." 5 
It has also been observed that a motor centre which has 
been fatigued for one reflex may be unaffected for another. 
"This state of fatigue is, accordingly, situated in some 
synapse, not in the efferent neurone itself." 6 Further, it 
has been as clearly shown that it is not in the nerves as 
that it is not in muscle. "In fact it is not possible to 
demonstrate any phenomena of fatigue in the nerve- 
trunk." 7 

Considerable evidence has been offered for locating fa- 
tigue in the synapse. "The lines of junction of nerves 
with other parts seem to be more readily fatigued. Nerve- 

1 Principles of Human Physiology, p. 209. 

'Starling seems unmindful of Verworn and Dolley's "fatigue of excita- 
tion" and "fatigue of depression"; i. e., fatigue caused by the consump- 
tion of reserve material from which the energy of the nerve-cell is derived, 
and the accumulation of waste products more rapidly than the nerve-cell 
can eliminate them. 

3 A. E. Schafer, Text-Book of Physiology, vol. II, p. 389. 

4 Ernest H. Starling, op. cit., p. 209. 

6 William M. Bayliss, Principles of General Physiology, 1915, p. 451. 
6 William M. Bayliss, op. cit., p. 475. 
* Ernest H. Starling, op. cit., p. 259. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 167 

cells, or the fields of conjunction in the central nervous 
system, seem to be markedly susceptible to fatigue," so 
"we may assume that the seat of the fatigue is to be sought 
either in the central nerve-cells or in the nerve network, 
'synapses,' in relation to them." l Evidence that the 
nerve-cell is the seat of fatigue has been given by Piper, 2 
who has shown that fatigue causes a decrease in the rate 
of oscillatory discharge of the nerve-cell. It has been 
known for some time that fatigue substances act in a 
stimulating manner upon the respiratory centres, quick- 
ening the rate and increasing the depth of respiratory 
movements. 

The primary seat of fatigue, then, appears to be either in 
the nerve-cell alone, or in both the nerve-cell and synapse. 
However this may be, originating in one tissue, it spreads 
through the blood circulation to other tissues and quickly 
becomes a more or less general condition of the body, 
affecting all organs. That fatigue products become a 
part of the general circulation is indicated by the fact that 
the introduction of blood from a fatigued dog into the 
circulation of one that is fresh will produce all the symp- 
toms of fatigue. "There is every reason to believe," says 
Lee, 3 "that the main principles of muscular fatigue are 
demonstrable in other tissues and organs of the body — 
that in them also fatigue is characterized physically by a 
diminution in working power, and chemically by the de- 
struction of energy-yielding substances and the appear- 
ance of toxic metabolic products. Diminution of working 
power is manifested in very different ways by diverse tis- 
sues. Glands in fatigue seem to secrete less than when 
fresh, and it may be that the action of digestive juices is 
diminished. The kidneys may be deranged, so that their 
epithelium is unable wholly to prevent the passage of al- 

1 William Stirling, Outlines of Practical Physiology, 1902, pp. 300, 303. 
s H. Piper, Elektrophysiologie menschlicher Muskeln, 1912, pp. 124 Jf. 
3 Popular Science Monthly, vol. 76, p. 182. 



168 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

bumin from the blood to the urine. A fatigued heart is 
dilated, its beats are quickened and may become irregular, 
and its diastole, or resting period, may become abbre- 
viated." 

Since fatigue expresses itself in the tissues and organs 
of the body, the vigor of these organs is evidently an im- 
portant matter; and any means of increasing their endur- 
ance has psychological significance. No apology, there- 
fore, is necessary for referring to muscular exercise in the 
psychology of the day's work. The intimate relation be- 
tween the mental and physical has long been recognized. 
Intelligence in animals is correlated with the range in mus- 
cular co-ordination, and the more complicated the neuro- 
muscular apparatus the greater the intelligence of the 
animal. In man, intellect, feelings, and will are closely 
related to alterations in the circulation of the blood in 
the body as a whole, as well as in the brain; and it is only 
under the influence of exercise that the circulation main- 
tains its highest degree of vigor. The so-called power of 
the will is dependent in some degree upon the firmness of 
muscle, or, at any rate, upon the bodily tone; and sensitive 
mental response bears a direct relation to vigorous bodily 
reactions. So far as fatigue itself is concerned, this rela- 
tion is even more clearly discernible. Weariness, however, 
whether mental or physical, is a relative matter. Some 
men are never fatigued, though they do a prodigious 
amount of work. 

The explanation of indifference to fatigue is found in 
the relation between expenditure of energy and the amount 
on deposit. Incessant change in bodily processes is char- 
acteristic of life. This change may be sluggish or it may 
be rapid — if too slow, the tissues and organs of the body 
are not properly renovated; and if too rapid, tissues are 
broken down faster than they can be rebuilt and bodily 
deterioration ensues. The chemical processes of the body 
should proceed as rapidly as an orderly reconstruction of 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 169 

the tissues permits. Fatigue is a sign that one is going 
too fast. But it should be observed that the rate of ac- 
tivity, again, is a relative matter. The important ques- 
tion is not how much one is spending but what is the ratio 
of expense to one's bank-account. Though the average 
amount of a man's work is about two million foot-pounds 
per day, Miller, the winner of the 1898 six-day bicycle-race, 
performed more than fifteen million foot-pounds of work 
on the first day, as calculated by Carpenter, and he aver- 
aged on each of the six days more than nine and a half 
million foot-pounds, which is approximately five times the 
daily average of men. But more than this, during the 
month following this tremendous expenditure of energy 
Miller again competed, this time in a twenty-four-hour 
race, and two months later he broke his previous record, 
winning another six-day race. 

Of course few engage in competitive contests of just this 
sort, but well-developed organs mean much for endurance 
in other fields than those of the race- track. "Voluntary 
and involuntary muscles should possess size, toughness, 
and contractile power sufficient for both ordinary and 
extraordinary demands. The heart should be able to re- 
sist a high blood-pressure without detriment to its muscle- 
fibres or valves. The capillary bed should be capacious. 
Vasomotor response should be ready. Respiratory organs 
should be capable of quickly bringing in oxygen and 
quickly eliminating carbon dioxide. Osmotic exchange 
should be rapid. Secreting and excreting organs should be 
quickly supplied witji blood and lymph and capable of 
quickly supplying their products." * 

Preparedness for possible emergencies is important here 
as in everything else, since preparation for the exceptional 
is excellent equipment for the usual. To almost every one 
come days of strain. Demands are suddenly put upon 
us, and the ease and success with which we accomplish 
1 Frederic C. Lee, Science, new series, vol. 29, p. 521. 



170 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

them depend upon our readiness. The reconstructive 
adaptation of the human body to the calls made upon it is 
one of the remarkable biological facts. But there should 
always be a margin of safety, and this requires that strength 
be kept at a high level of vigor. "Moderate but increas- 
ing amounts of exercise, producing moderate but increas- 
ing amounts of fatigue substances, put the tissues into a 
state of tolerance or resistance, such that when the supreme 
effort is demanded of them they do not succumb. He who 
wins is he who can best resist the poisons of fatigue." L 
Training consists, among other things, in producing resis- 
tance to fatigue products. 

It has long been known that organisms may become 
immune to toxic substances by growing accustomed to 
gradually increasing quantities. Illustrations of physio- 
logical immunity are abundant, and they are important 
because they show the extent to which resistance, in the 
matter of which we are speaking, may be developed. A 
man may gradually increase the dose of arsenic until he 
can take enough to kill ten men. His adaptation to this 
drug is now so perfect that if he suddenly stops taking it 
he will die. In other words, to accustom him again to the 
normal conditions of human life the dose must be gradu- 
ally decreased until his organs have readjusted themselves 
to its absence. Adaptation to the poisons of venomous 
snakes may also be artificially produced by gradually in- 
creasing the amount given. Such a man may then live 
among these poisonous snakes without danger to his life. 

In the same way immunity to the poisons of fatigue sub- 
stances may be developed. Excess in anything is de- 
bauchery, but in the matter of physical exercise excess 
varies with individuals. What tires one is insufficient for 
the well-being of another. The physical strength of some 
is abundant and of others insufficient. One should en- 
deavor to extend the boundaries of one's endurance, always 

1 Frederic C. Lee, op. cit. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 171 

stopping before exhaustion is reached, but doing a little 
more the next day. The muscles of the heart should be 
strengthened by exercise, just as those of the arm should 
be hardened. A man with unhypertrophied heart and 
muscles is a mollycoddle who cannot stand strain when it 
is put upon him. 

The test of "fitness" is the capacity to continue active 
unfatigued. The curve of fatigue for any particular day 
is to a certain extent a gauge of the bodily and mental con- 
dition at the time. The night's rest, digestion, emotions, 
all of these influences and others that are not so obvious, 
greatly influence the ability to do work and largely deter- 
mine the sort of work done, its accuracy and value. The 
most important factor in producing fitness, however, be- 
cause of its far-reaching effect upon the body and mind, is 
probably exercise. With moderate exercise there is no 
evidence that any other substance than carbon dioxide is 
formed, but with violent exercise lactic acid is also pro- 
duced. A variety of experiments indicate that lactic acid 
appears with a relative deficiency in the supply of oxygen 
to the contracting muscle. The copious intake of oxygen 
that accompanies exercise would tend, therefore, to reduce 
the lactic-acid formation. Respiration is essentially a 
gaseous exchange and takes place primarily in the cell. 
For these reasons, and since muscle in an atmosphere of 
pure oxygen does not fatigue as soon as in an atmosphere 
of nitrogen, and a muscle stimulated to exhaustion in an 
atmosphere of nitrogen recovers quickly in pure oxygen, it 
would appear that the presence of oxygen tends to push 
back the fatigue-point. All of this suggests the value of 
volumes of fresh air in delaying fatigue and of furthering 
recovery when fatigue has set in. 

"The practical importance of muscular exercise upon 
the processes of oxidation in the body cannot be over- 
estimated in these days when overcivilization tends to 
weaken the physique and moral fibre of man. There is no 



172 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

other condition, whether it be physiological or pathological, 
which will produce such a great increase in the absorption 
of oxygen and the discharge of carbon dioxide, such a 
wide-spread effect upon the exchange of material in the 
body. Man in a primitive condition is forced to muscular 
exercise in order that he may obtain food or protect him- 
self from wild animals, or more often from his fellow men. 
Civilization cannot override in a generation or two the 
characteristics impressed through countless ages, and the 
need of exercise becomes imperative and finds satisfaction 
in sport, when, owing to the process of division of labor, 
some classes become differentiated for work necessitating 
but little muscular activity. . . . One of the marked 
characteristics of life is oxidation, but the benefits of mus- 
cular work are not to be attributed to that alone. Muscu- 
lar activity is not a simple increase of oxidation; the body 
is not a machine from which work can be obtained simply 
at the expense of more fuel and increased wear and tear. 
The co-ordination of all the systems of the body is neces- 
sary, and all parts are affected; the growth and vitality of 
the body are favored by the work performed. In these re- 
spects muscular exercise is of the utmost importance, and 
one may see in the training for warfare among the highly 
civilized and especially the manufacturing nations a bless- 
ing in disguise. Should the danger of war ever be entirely 
removed the only safeguard against degeneration would 
be outdoor sport." l 

Unfortunately, physical activity is too commonly re- 
garded as the luxury of play. The belief is somewhat 
wide-spread, especially in the United States, that muscular 
exercise is unnecessary and perhaps undesirable after a 
man has reached the sixth and seventh decade of his life. 
To be sure, the popularity of golf has, to a certain extent, 
changed this opinion, but, after all, a comparatively small 

1 Recent Advances in Physiology and Bio-Chemistry, edited by Leonard 
Hill, 1908, pp. 497 Jf- 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 173 

proportion of these older men play the game. The ex- 
pense, time, and output of energy needed are resistances 
to which those advanced in years readily yield, and walk- 
ing, as well as gymnasium exercise, are felt to be uninterest- 
ing. Consequently, these men give themselves up to the 
physical and mental disintegrating processes of age. The 
effect of regular exercise in developing the bodily organs 
and in promoting resistance to fatigue, even in those ad- 
vanced in years, is seen in an instance cited by Sargent. 1 
"Mr. Smith Robertson, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a man 
5 feet 8 inches in height, and weighing 140 pounds, began 
systematic exercise with 10-pound dumb-bells and a hori- 
zontal bar when sixty-nine years of age. He worked with 
this apparatus for about ten minutes a day, and walked 
from four to six miles a day regularly for a period of three 
years. At the end of this time he found that his weight 
had increased from 140 to 160 pounds, his chest measure- 
ment had increased from 36 to 40 inches, and all the other 
muscles of the body proportionately; and at eighty- three 
years of age he could walk or run almost as easily and with 
apparently the same elasticity as fifty or sixty years 
before." . 

Another striking illustration of the value of muscular 
exercise is Edward Payson Weston. In childhood he was 
weak and sickly, and as he grew older he displayed no par- 
ticular athletic ability and had little endurance. At about 
eighteen years of age fear for his health caused him to 
turn to walking. A few years ago, at seventy-two years of 
age, he walked from New York to San Francisco, a dis- 
tance of four thousand miles, in a few hours more than 
one hundred and four days. Not satisfied with this 
record, he walked back from Los Angeles to New York, 
about three thousand six hundred miles, in ninety-five 
days. 

One of the valuable contributions of the entry of the 

1 Physical Education, by Dudley A. Sargent, pp. 63 jf. 



174 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

United States into the present war is the discovery of the 
value of strenuous exercise. The young men come home 
on their furloughs so completely made over as to be hardly 
recognized by their friends or themselves. Thin boys have 
taken on the right amount of flesh, and the fat have be- 
come normal. And with it all has come a hardening 
of the muscles that has altered their feelings, thoughts, 
and acts. They have gained a little sweetness and some 
light. 

Physical exercise as a means of acquiring resistance to 
fatigue has received too little attention, and the value of 
medicine has been overestimated. "It is well known that 
a man 'in training' has greater endurance than one who 
attempts exertion without previous systematic exercise or 
training. In general, it may be said that a person in the 
'pink of condition' is fit not only for physical but also for 
mental exertion. The great majority of adults are far 
from being 'in condition,' suffering either from lack of 
exercise or from too much exercise. The ordinary man 
errs either in one direction or the other. The brain worker 
lives too sedentary a life, while the manual worker, through 
fatigue caused by long hours, is in a continual state of over- 
exertion. Could these conditions be remedied, endurance, 
as measured by capacity to withstand prolonged strains, 
might be greatly increased. 

"Experiments have shown that physical endurance can 
be doubled by dietetic causes alone, or doubled by exercise 
alone. By both together it is not unlikely that it could be 
tripled or quadrupled. But when it is said that the endur- 
ance, or capacity for exertion, of the ordinary healthy man 
could be thus multiplied, it is not meant that the hours 
of his daily work, or even his daily output of work, could 
be increased in such a ratio. What it does mean is the 
removal of the fatigue limit, a freer and more buoyant life, 
and a visible increase in the quantity and quality of work 
per hour. In an ideal life fatigue would be seldom experi- 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 175 

enced. But in most lives, unfortunately, fatigue is a daily 
experience." * 

Probably few men actively engaged in earning their liv- 
ing know the feeling of this buoyant life. The stress of 
business and of professional problems to be solved, and 
the worries of making ends meet, keep them at best bal- 
ancing on the edge of fatigue. They are unacquainted 
with the freedom that clears away the mental haze and 
gives constructive visions and insights which cannot be 
obtained when the fatigue limit is approached. They are 
content with living in the conventional state of "good 
health." 

The difference between being "well" and thoroughly 
"fit" has been splendidly characterized by Fisher. "When 
a person is free from all specific ailments, both serious and 
minor, he usually calls himself 'well.' There is, however, 
a vast difference between such a 'well' man and one in 
ideally robust health. The difference is one of endurance 
or susceptibility to fatigue. Many 'well' men cannot run 
a block for a street-car or climb more than one flight of 
stairs without feeling completely tired out, while another 
'well' man will run twenty-five miles or climb the Matter- 
horn from pure love of sport. The Swiss guides, through- 
out the summer season, day after day, spend their entire 
time in climbing. A Chinese cooly will run for hours at a 
stretch. That the world regards such performances as 
'marvellous feats of endurance' only shows how marvel- 
lously out of training the world as a whole really is. In 
mental work some persons are unable to apply themselves 
more than an hour at a time, while others, like Humboldt 
or Mommsen, can work almost continuously through fif- 
teen hours of the day." 2 

The source of muscular energy is, of course, important 

1 Irving Fisher, Bulletin 30 of the Committee of One Hundred on National 
Health, p. 44. 

2 Ibid., p. 40. 



176 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

in connection with ability to work and to avoid fatigue. 
The evidence here is quite clear. Fisher and Fisk report 1 
an experiment made to test the popular idea that meat is 
especially "strengthening." "The experiments consisted of 
endurance tests made on forty-nine persons representing 
the two types of dietary habits. . . . The experiments 
furnished a severe test of the claims of the flesh abstainers. 
Two comparisons were planned, one between flesh-eating 
athletes and flesh-abstaining athletes, and the other be- 
tween flesh-eating athletes and flesh-abstaining sedentary 
workers. The results would indicate that the users of low 
protein and non-flesh dietaries have far greater endurance 
than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American 
diet. . . . Similar results have been found in other in- 
vestigations. It is probable that the inferiority of meat- 
eaters in staying power is due primarily to high protein 
and not to meat per se." 

Experiments on vegetarians and meat-eaters in the Uni- 
versity of Brussels gave similar results. 2 The tests were 
largely comparisons of strength and endurance. As regards 
strength, little difference was discovered between vegeta- 
rians and "carnivores." In endurance, however, a striking 
difference was found, the vegetarians surpassing the car- 
nivores from 50 to 200 per cent. 

Though meat does not give the strength and endurance 
that it has been thought to furnish, it is doubtful whether 
its sudden exclusion from man's dietary is desirable. As 
Pavlov has shown, meat is one of the most peptogenic 
foods. It seems to stimulate the stomach, and while this 
excitation may be to a certain extent artificial, some stom- 
achs seem to require it at least occasionally. Perhaps the 
safer course is to indulge when the craving is felt. The 
mistake is in regarding it as an essential article of daily diet. 

1 How to Live, pp. 197/. 

* EnquSte Scientifiqut sur les Vigilariens it Bruxelks, by J. loteyko and 
V. Kipiani, 1907. 1 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 177 

Chittenden believes that the waste products of foods 
containing an excessive quantity of protein, conspicuously 
meat, is one of the causes of fatigue. His dietetic tests 
made on men in various occupations are remarkably sug- 
gestive. "Nowhere in the literature of nutrition do we 
find an experiment so painstaking and accurate, covering 
so long a period, with a diet of so low a protein content 
following a normal diet," says Benedict. 1 "But," con- 
tinues the same writer, "it has not been incontrovertibly 
proven that such a diet could be advantageously adopted 
for all time, nor that the apparent improvements were due 
entirely to the low protein. . . , Dietary studies all over 
the world show that in communities where productive 
power, enterprise, and civilization are at their highest, 
man has instinctively and independently selected liberal 
rather than small quantities of protein." Lusk also takes 
a similar view. He quotes Rubner approvingly, who, he 
says, "believes that there should always be an excess of 
protein constructive material, so that if after physical ex- 
haustion there is depletion of the glycogen reserves, under 
which circumstances the wear and tear on the cell protein 
is increased, there may be building units in reserve to 
quickly restore the tissue destroyed." 2 This question of 
diet, however, seems not yet closed. 

The evidence indicates that, while muscular work can 
be done at the expense of any of the foodstuffs, carbohy- 
drates are the most available source of muscular energy, 
and the brain requires the same food as the other cells of 
the body. Carbohydrates include starches and sugars. 
Each plant has its own kind of starch, and the grains and 
potatoes are starchy foods. Protein, found in lean meat, 
fish, milk, eggs, and cheese, supplies building material. 
Corn and the cereal grains, with the exception of rice, also 
contain protein matter. It would be possible to eat noth- 

1 American Journal of Physiology, vol. 15, p. 418. 

a Graham Lusk, The Fundamental Basis of Nutrition, 1915, p. 32. 



178 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

ing but protein, but the system would be overloaded with 
protein waste. Enough protein should be eaten for build- 
ing material, and carbohydrates and fats should be taken 
for energy foods. Fats produce more than twice as much 
heat as the carbohydrates, so the Eskimo and others who 
live in cold climates eat chiefly protein and animal fat. 
Those in warm climates, on the other hand, live largely 
on carbohydrates, vegetable proteins, and fruits. Theo- 
retically, either one of the energy foods with protein would 
sustain life, but for practical reasons, such as digestion, it 
is better to take both carbohydrates and fats. Fat is also 
valuable as a food, because man is more prone to certain 
diseases, among them tuberculosis, if the amount of fat 
in the diet is too limited. 

The weight of opinion seems to be increasingly favorable 
to protein reduction, but the purposes of nutrition must 
not be forgotten. These purposes Lusk has put in a strik- 
ing way. "The workshops of life," he says, "require fuel 
to maintain them, and a necessary function of nutrition is 
to furnish fuel to the organism that the motions of life 
continue. Furthermore, the workshops of life are in a 
constant state of partial breaking-down, and materials 
must be furnished to repair the worn-out parts. In the 
fuel factor and the repair factor lie the essence of the 
science of nutrition." 1 But fuel and repair do not exhaust 
the subject of nutrition. 

"The statement that a diet composed of the five classes 
of foodstuffs — proteins, fats, carbohydrates, salt, and water 
— is all that is necessary for the maintenance of life is 
not strictly true. ... It seems that in addition to the 
five classes of foodstuffs, minimal quantities of certain 
other substances are necessary in order that the processes 
of life may proceed normally. How these substances act 
we do not know, but we must imagine that they have a 
drug-like effect on some organs of the body, and take the 
place of or give rise to some of the hormones which are 
1 Op. cit., p. 4. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 179 

essential for the orderly working of the different organs 
of the body." 1 These vitamines, as they are called, are 
present in the juices of fruits, fresh vegetables, eggs, peas, 
beans, milk, and in the outer layer of grains. Since they 
are destroyed by excessive heat, the best sources from 
which to obtain them are uncooked vegetables and fruits. 

"Men and horses work best when they are well fed, and 
feed best when they are well worked. Work creates a 
craving for food, and thus assists digestion and absorption. 
Here is a natural stimulus to the appetite, more potent 
than any drug; it is known to some, but many will not be 
cured of their ailments by muscular work; they seek some 
miracle-working drug, or the waters of a fashionable 
health-resort, where they are unconsciously made to take 
exercise and lead a more natural life." 2 

We have been considering some of the conditions of 
physical and mental vigor. Let us now turn to the effect 
of normally continuous work. At first one's power of 
work increases, then continues at its maximum, and if the 
work is continued one's efficiency gradually diminishes. 
Sometimes the efficiency may be maintained beyond the 
normal period by increasing the stimulus. We may drive 
ourselves in one way or another. But even under stimulus 
the time finally comes when we are no longer able to keep 
at a high level of production. The first delay is observ- 
able in the time required to get "warmed up" to the work. 
This preliminary warming up is noticed alike in physical 
and mental work. It is well known "that at the com- 
mencement of exercise or muscular work there is often 
absent even in the trained man that smoothness in the co- 
ordination of the muscular contractions, respiration, and 
circulation, which comes after a short time, and is expressed 
in the colloquial language of the laborer as 'getting into 
the swing of the work.'" 3 

1 Ernest H. Starling, op. cit., p. 652. 

2 Leonard Hill, op. cit., p. 502. 
'Leonard Hill, op. cit., p. 501. 



180 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Practice and skill also reduce fatigue in intellectual activ- 
ities. Mental work of a very simple nature frequently 
produces exhaustion in those unaccustomed to using their 
minds in such a manner. MacCauley, who investigated 
the Seminole Indians of Florida, 1 has given some inter- 
esting information regarding the mental fatigue of these 
people. It should be noted, first of all, that in MacCauley's 
opinion the Seminoles rank in the first class of American 
aborigines. "They seem to be mentally active. ... In 
their intercourse with one another they are, as a rule, volu- 
ble, vivacious, showing the possession of relatively active 
brains and mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Semi- 
noles I met cannot justly be called either stupid or intel- 
lectually sluggish." To test the effect of continuous mod- 
erate mental activity on people unaccustomed to it, one 
of the men was kept busy for the greater part of the day 
answering questions. "Occupying our time with inquiries 
not very interesting to him, about the language and life of 
his people, I could see how much I wearied him. Often I 
found by his answers that his brain was to a degree para- 
lyzed by the long-continued tension to which it was sub- 
jected." 

Mosso, with the effect of practice and skill in mind, in- 
vestigated the fatigue of soldiers who were learning to 
read and write. The result of the study of these men was 
of great importance to them because moderate success 
shortened the time of military service. One of the officers 
to whom Mosso wrote for information replied: " At the class 
examination at which soldiers have to give proof that they 
are not illiterate in order to obtain their discharge, I have 
often seen great, strong men perspire until drops of sweat 
fell upon the paper. At Lecco I saw one faint during the 
examination, then, feeling better, demand another trial; 
but on the threshold, at sight of paper and book, he turned 
pale and fell into a fresh faint." 2 

1 Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-1884, p. 493. 
1 Fatigue, Drummond's translation, p. 121. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 181 

Activity, even of a practised and habitual sort, however, 
tends to produce fatigue, when the work is done under un- 
favorable conditions. Walking is automatic, but if shoes 
or boots are uncomfortable, effort to avoid the pain brings 
into action muscles commonly unused. "Work which is 
performed painfully by man or beast is uneconomical. 
The truth of these statements has been fully demonstrated 
by the successes and failures of forced marches. Pain is 
beneficent; it is a warning, a natural safeguard, an incen- 
tive to rest; the sensations of pain may be neglected, or 
may be deadened by drugs, and work can be performed, 
but it is extravagant work, and the penalty has to be paid 
sooner or later." l 

"Fatigue is also accompanied by an extravagant metabo- 
lism; from this cause the output of carbon dioxide may be 
increased even as much as 21 per cent. An abnormal rise 
in the temperature of the body is produced by excessive 
and prolonged work under unfavorable conditions, and 
apparently causes a further extravagant combustion." 2 

The amount of fatigue, however, bears no direct relation 
to the work done. Much depends upon the condition of 
the muscle. It was shown in Mosso's laboratory that a 
fatigued muscle suffers more harm from a light task than 
an unfatigued one from much more severe work, and, in 
the unfatigued muscle at least, the expenditure of energy 
during the first half of a period of work is considerably less 
than during the second half. Vigorous, unfatigued mus- 
cle has a certain amount of available energy which may 
be drawn upon, but a fatigued muscle uses energy needed 
for other purposes. The difference is much like using one's 
bank-account instead of withdrawing money from one's 
business. But, in addition to the muscle exhausting its re- 
serve of energy when work is continued beyond the fatigue- 
point, the nervous system performs its part with a more 
intense and wasteful expenditure. Under these conditions, 
however, nervous energy is not merely squandered. The 

1 Leonard Hill, op. cit. 2 Ibid., p. 501. 






182 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

irritation that accompanies fatigue leads to a breaking- 
down of nervous structures. The energy utilized in the 
contraction of muscle is derived from chemical changes 
occurring in the muscle, and muscular exercise increases 
the intake of oxygen as well as the output of carbon di- 
oxide. Since no correspondingly significant changes are 
observed in the nitrogenous metabolism, it appears that 
the energy for muscular contraction is derived largely 
from the oxidation of carbohydrates. "In excessive work, 
as opposed to normal vigorous work, there is evidence 
of a certain amount of nitrogenous breakdown of the 
structure itself." l This is due to the wear and tear of 
the machinery. Overwork tends to destroy muscle-sub- 
stance. 

We said that the expenditure of energy during the first 
half of a period of work is less than during the second half. 
This is true even when more work is done during the first 
part of the period than during the second half. Mosso 
found in testing muscles that, if the work is reduced by 
one-half, the time needed for rest is only a quarter of the 
time required for recovery when the full amount of work 
is done. Further: "From this experiment . . . ," he says, 
"it appears that if the energy of the muscle is not com- 
pletely exhausted, that is to say, if the final contractions 
are not made, the fatigue is much less, and the muscle is 
able to perform more than double the amount of mechani- 
cal work which it would do if it worked to the point of 
exhaustion with the most favorable conditions for repose." 2 
Probably this is approximately true of the mind as well as 
of muscles. That is, if work is not carried to the point of 
exhaustion, the necessary periods of rest are shortened, 
and the amount of work finally accomplished is much 
greater than when the work is carried to the point of ex- 
treme fatigue, with longer periods of rest under exception- 

1 William M. Bayliss, op. cil., p. 449. 

2 Op. cit., pp. 152/. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 183 

ally favorable conditions for repose. Wimms, 1 for in- 
stance, found that short rest-pauses are more favorable in 
hard mental tasks than in easier ones. 

Vigorous, unfatigued muscle is indifferent to the work 
that it does, provided the work is within the limit of its 
capacity. When, on the other hand, the energy of a mus- 
cle is depleted, release from even a small part of the work 
is a relief. Amateur mountain-climbers well know the 
anguish of the last half-hour, though the preceding four 
hours, requiring perhaps more labor per mile, brought 
only joy. This is also true of the mind. Experience shows 
that a robust mind is dauntless. But let one's energy be- 
come diminished, and escape from small matters seems like 
release from an unbearable burden. In other words, the 
intensity of fatigue bears no definite relation to the amount 
of work done. 

We have spoken of the striking effect of very slight 
additions to the stimulus when fatigued, and reference was 
made to the strain of the last part of a mountain-climb. 
On the mental side this is especially noticeable when one is 
recovering from sickness. Under these conditions even 
conversation is fatiguing. Cerebral activity decreases, and 
one is slow to get the meaning of what one reads or hears. 
But irritability increases. Sounds and noises ordinarily 
unnoticed are annoying. Francis Galton relates an inter- 
esting experience of his own. 

"A few years ago I foolishly overworked myself, as 
many others have done, misled by a perverted instinct, 
which goaded to increased exertion instead of dictating 
rest. The consequence was that I fairly broke down, and 
could not for some days even look at a book or any sort 
of writing. I went abroad, and, though I grew much bet- 
ter and could amuse myself with books, the first town 
where I experienced real repose was Rome. There was 
no doubt of the influence of the place — it was strongly 
1 British Journal of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 153. 



1 84 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

marked; and for a long time I sought in vain for the reason 
of it. At length, what I accept as a full and adequate ex- 
planation occurred to me — simply, that there were no ad- 
vertisements on the walls. There was a picturesqueness 
and grandeur in its streets which sufficed to fill the mind, 
and there were no petty distractions to fret a wearied eye 
and brain." 1 

There are several causes for the lack of correlation be- 
tween fatigue and the quantity of work done. First of all, 
as has already been said, comes the effect of the emotions. 
It makes an immense difference whether a man enjoys his 
work or not. "A man with no interest is rapidly fagged. 
Prisoners are well nourished and cared for, but they can- 
not perform the task of an ill-fed and ill-housed laborer. 
Whenever they are forced to do more than their usual 
small amount they show all the symptoms of being over- 
taxed and sicken. An army in retreat suffers in every 
way, while one in the advance, being full of hope, may 
perform prodigious feats." 2 

The effect of the emotions upon fatigue shows that the 
vocation which a young man selects means much more 
than the financial returns. His ability to put his work 
through depends upon his working capacity, and the latter 
draws its energy in no small degree from his enjoyment of 
what he is doing. In the matter of exercise, again, the 
value is not gained merely from using the muscles, but the 
service is greatly enhanced by the bodily thrills that come 
only with zest for the activity. Just as food should be 
palatable to serve best its purposes, so exercise needs to be 
enjoyable. 

We have said that fatigue dulls comprehension. It also 
weakens the memory. The writer has observed that his 
memory of facts and names deteriorates markedly after a 
mountain-climb of four or five hours' duration. Associa- 

1 English Men of Science, p. 172. 
' Francis Galton, op. cit., p. 58. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 185 

tions will not respond under the influence of fatigue that 
comes over an amateur who must break in his climbing- 
muscles each summer. Mosso quotes alpinists as saying 
that the events of the last part of an ascent are least dis- 
tinctly remembered, and one "was obliged to take notes 
during an ascent, because on his return in the evening he 
remembered almost nothing." This probably refers to a 
condition of complete exhaustion. At any rate the writer 
has not observed it in himself, not even after a severe six 
hours' ascent of Long's Peak. Memory was not normal, but 
its deficiency lay rather in failure to recall the details of 
what had been read or heard previous to making the ascent. 
The effect of fatigue upon memory raises the larger 
question of the relation between different sorts of fatigue. 
The belief is quite general that, when one is mentally tired, 
change of occupation gives sufficient rest. This is prob- 
ably true only when fatigue is not fatigue, but ennui. Work 
becomes monotonous and we think that we are tired. In- 
dolence is often taken for fatigue. In such cases change 
of occupation is refreshing. Even another book treating 
of a different subject brightens the mind. Mere change, 
with its new sights, and sounds, and people, breaks the 
dead level of monotony. One grows tired of seeing the 
same persons and hearing them say the same things. So 
one finds that "fatigue" vanishes in another town or city, 
though the conditions for work may be no better in other 
respects. For this reason it is mental economy occasion- 
ally to pack one's grip and begin anew in another place. 
Change of scenery clears the mind. The writer invariably 
finds that the "fatigue" of the year disappears and that 
work can be continued with renewed vigor when vacation 
permits a change of habitat. Sometimes, again, one has 
sat so long that the muscles are tired. Exercise or a brisk 
walk in the open is then a relief. Moderate muscular ex- 
ercise is also stimulating. The abundant oxygen of the 
fresher air also plays its part. 



i86 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The work-cure for those with whom fatigue is chronic is 
closely related to this matter of change. The "invalid" 
who waits till he feels able to work will never begin. The 
writer has known of young women afflicted with chronic 
invalidism who were cured by activity. In several cases 
it was social-settlement work, in which they were so busy 
and stood on their feet so long that strong men would 
have been exhausted. Yet at night they were only pleas- 
antly tired. One young woman who could not walk half 
a mile without exhaustion and whom the slightest exertion 
sent to bed, became so interested in a secretaryship which 
she secured that the day's work brought no fatigue, though 
typewriting is not a restful occupation. A part of the 
value of the "work-cure" consists, of course, in keeping 
the thoughts from one's "afflictions" and in dissipating 
worry; and worry is the most efficient promoter of fatigue. 
Work or activity of any sort, in which one finds pleasure 
and success, is almost certain to be unattended by fatigue. 
The usual periods of rest and vacation will be sufficient to 
meet the demands for recuperation. 

But none of these states is fatigue in the proper sense. 
When one is tired from concentrated attention and thought, 
change of occupation is likely to augment fatigue. In- 
tellectual activity, to be worth while, should be intense. 
Nerve-centres are then exhausted, and for this reason the 
muscles themselves are weakened. Maggiora tested the 
endurance of the middle finger of his left hand in Mosso's 
laboratory. In the morning tests his finger contracted 
fifty-three times before temporary exhaustion. In the 
afternoon he examined twelve students — candidates for the 
doctor's degree — during three and one-half hours. Then 
he again tested the endurance of his finger and found that 
it was exhausted by twelve contractions. Even after two 
hours of complete repose it had not regained its strength of 
the morning. A tired brain evidently means a tired body. 

This relation between brain and body in the matter of 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 187 

fatigue is especially important in connection with school 
work. First of all, it should be said that children rarely 
study hard enough to become fatigued. With them what 
is called fatigue is more commonly languor arising from 
lack of interest — or it is the outgrowth of nervous excite- 
ment resulting from the confusion of commands and pro- 
hibitions. At home and in school, at different times, chil- 
dren are forbidden and permitted to do the same thing, 
according to the momentary mood of those over them, 
until rules of action become chaotic. Again, " dangerous 
fatigue is the result of unhealthy confinement within doors, 
or is owing to unwholesome shocks, and puzzlings, and 
confusions, and conflicts of impulses resulting from the 
imposition of scatter-brain notions of teaching and disci- 
pline, imposed much too fast for the child to grow to, or 
even to comprehend. . . . Other sources of dangerous 
fatigue are overs timulated ambitions or disproportionate 
pressure and rivalries, instigated by home or class com- 
panions." l 

The "dangerous fatigue" from unhealthy confinement 
within doors, to which reference has just been made, is 
worth a moment's digression. One of the problems of 
fatigue is how to escape it without unnecessary reduction 
of work, and for children, at least, the open-air schools 
seem to have given the solution. They remove the fatigue- 
limit to the evening and night, where it belongs. "Obser- 
vations have shown that the pupils in outdoor and open- 
window schools are not only kept more healthy, but learn 
more quickly than those in the ordinary school"; 4 and 
their work is also more accurate. 3 Recent investigation* 

1 Smith Baker, Educational Review, vol. 15, pp. 35/. 

* How to Live, by Irving Fisher and Eugene L. Fisk, p. 19. 

8 Walter W. Roach, American Journal of Public Health, vol. 3, no. 2. 

* Report of the New York State Commission on Ventilation, by E. L. Thorn- 
dike, W. A. McCall, and J. C. Chapman. Teachers College, Columbia 
University, Contributions to Education, no. 78. Open-Air Schools, Bulletin 
no. 23, Bureau of Education, Washington, 191 7. 



1 88 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

indicates that the harmfulness of confined and respired air 
is not due so much to its chemical components as to its 
physical features. Confined air is too warm, too dry, and 
too still. But whether the effect of confined air is due to 
its physical or chemical condition, there is no doubt of its 
influence in producing the feelings of fatigue, if not fatigue 
itself; and the greater wear and tear of work done under 
unfavorable atmospheric conditions promotes derangement 
of nervous functions and deterioration of tissues. 

Let us turn now to one or two of the latest investiga- 
tions of fatigue in school children. The most recent ex- 
tensive test was made by Heck. 1 This investigation is of 
unusual significance because of the large number and va- 
riety of children included, and because of the natural con- 
ditions under which the tests were given. Over 1,100 
children in four New York City schools, "representing dif- 
ferent nationalities and different grades of social and hy- 
gienic opportunities" were tested under the usual school- 
room organization. The work was given at different times 
of the day — shortly after nine and eleven o'clock in the 
morning, and at one o'clock and half after two in the 
afternoon. The material was a modified form of one of 
Courtis' Standard Tests in arithmetic. The results showed 
that "mental fatigue in relation to the daily school pro- 
gramme is far less than generally believed. . . . The 
small amount of fatigue noticeable during the school-day 
was more probably caused by improper conditions of ven- 
tilation, lighting, etc., than by the school work itself. Un- 
hygienic conditions in the school and physical defects, how- 
ever slight, in the children are undoubtedly the great 
causes of fatigue in most schools. The decrease in quality 
of work of children as the day advances, supposed to be 
more or less general in schools, is due less to exhaustion of 
the energy-producing material of the nerve-cells of the 
body, and to autopoisoning of the nervous system by 
1 W. H. Heck, Mental Fatigue in Relation to the Daily School Program, 1913. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 189 

waste products from this process, than to a loss of interest 
in school work, with its lack of vital and varied appeal, 
and its monotony of instruction and environment. The 
bored child, unconsciously or consciously, rebels and does 
a less correct amount of work. Continued work produces 
boredom and continued boredom decreases efficiency, on 
account of the close mutual relation between physiological 
and mental attitudes. With sound bodies, a hygienic 
school, proper classification, frequent relaxation, a vital 
and varied curriculum, and live teachers, most children 
will show no problem of fatigue in relation to the daily 
school programme." 

Heck also tested 573 children in the Lynchburg, Virginia, 
schools. 1 As before, two periods were taken in the morn- 
ing and two in the afternoon. The length of the test was 
increased from ten to twenty-five minutes to determine 
whether a longer period would reveal fatigue. The results 
strengthened the former conclusions. 

Still another test was made by Heck, 2 this time with 467 
boys and girls in the Roanoke, Virginia, schools. "The final 
conclusion to be drawn from this experiment in Roanoke 
with reasoning-tests in arithmetic, as well as from those in 
Lynchburg and New York with the fundamental opera- 
tions, is that normal, healthy children in the grammar 
grades, in a hygienic school environment, can meet the 
requirements of the usual daily school programme without 
injury to themselves or their work." 

Short tests of ten minutes and also those involving con- 
tinuous effort extending through an hour or more have 
been made recently in the grades of the Winthrop Training 
School. 3 The short tests consisted of examples in addition 
and subtraction, while the longer ones were drawn from 
algebra, history, and Latin. The results indicate that "in 

1 Psychological Clinic, vol. 7, p. 29. 

1 Op. cit., vol. 7, p. 258. 

3 L. A. Robinson, Bulletin no. 2, Winthrop Normal and Industrial College. 



190 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

general there is more weariness than fatigue in the chil- 
dren; and mental activities are more necessary than com- 
plete idleness. Here, then, is the teacher's problem: How 
to provide the proper mental stimulations for keeping up 
the interest in school. ... If a boy sees no purpose in 
learning he will not learn." 

"A fair claim to make on the basis of the results ob- 
tained," says Thorndike, 1 in summing up his investigation 
of fatigue in school children, "is that a regular day's work 
in the grammar school does not decrease the ability of the 
child to do mental work. . . . The chief responsibility 
for mental exhaustion in scholars falls, I should be in- 
clined to think, not on a Creator who made our minds so 
that work hurts them, nor on the public opinion which 
demands that children shall do a given amount of work, 
but upon the unwise choice of material for study, the un- 
wise direction of effort, the unwise inhibition of pleasurable 
activities, the unwise abuse of sense-organs, and unattrac- 
tiveness of teachers and teaching." 

We have quoted from these experiments in some detail 
because the information is needed as an antidote to the sen- 
timentality regarding fatigue. Maudlin emotions threaten 
to deprive children of the advantages of a busy, thoughtful 
life during a small part of the day. As a matter of fact, 
if children are as fresh after two hours in school as when 
they entered, they have missed something worth while. 
Moderate fatigue, if caused by work and not by foul air 
or nervous irritation, is not bad, provided school is forgot- 
ten on the playground and sleep is abundant and undis- 
turbed. Probably one of the chief causes of injurious fa- 
tigue in children is the constant nagging to which they are 
so commonly subjected. A shrill, penetrating voice, ex- 
ploding with "don'ts," has little efficiency beyond nervous 
irritation. 

Experiments on fatigue presuppose that it will always 

1 Psychological Review, vol. 7, p. 547. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 191 

reveal itself in the quantity or quality of work accom- 
plished. Yet there are two physiological facts which seem to 
deny this assumption. And this contribution from phys- 
iology has not received sufficient attention from investi- 
gators of mental fatigue. The first of these two facts is the 
stimulating effect of small quantities of fatigue-substances. 

"If present in small quantity, or moderate quantity, for 
a brief time, each substance," says Lee, "causes an aug- 
mentation of activity of the muscle, which is character- 
ized by an increase in irritability and working power, an 
increase in the height to which the load is lifted, and an 
increase in the total amount of work performed." 1 And 
again, as Bayliss says: "It appears that the presence of 
a small quantity of products of activity is favorable." 2 
This has been demonstrated only for muscle, but the 
assumption that it is also true of mental activity is a pos- 
sibility which cannot, at any rate, be denied. If this stim- 
ulating effect of a moderate amount of fatigue-substances 
shall be found true also of mental activity, we may then 
expect, for a brief time, an improvement in the quantity 
and quality of work; and one investigator 3 thinks that 
there is such a period when fatigue acts as a stimulant in 
mental as well as in muscular work. 

Let us now turn to the second physiological fact to 
which reference has been made. Gruber 4 fatigued a mus- 
cle with an hour's work and then allowed it to rest for 
an hour and a half. The result of this rest was a gradual 
but steady recovery of vigor. Then adrenalin was in- 
jected, and the effect, five minutes after the injection, was 
a further, but at the same time abrupt, recovery of 61 per 
cent. Subsequent rest for an hour and a half produced 
no further recovery. In another experiment the effect of 

1 American Journal of Physiology, vol. 20, p. 170, and Columbia University 
Studies in Psychology, reprints, 1907-1909. 

2 Op. cit., p. 451. 

s May Smith, British Journal of Psychology, vol. 8, p. 327. 

* Charles M. Gruber, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 55, p. 335. 



192 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

adrenalin, after an hour's work, was substantially the 
same, showing a recovery of 62 per cent. Gruber proved 
that the effect of adrenalin is a counteraction of fatigue 
by determining the threshold stimulus for muscle and 
nerve-muscle in non-fatigued animals before and after 
injecting adrenalin. He found that in the case of non- 
fatigued muscle there was no lowering of the threshold, "a 
result in marked contrast with the pronounced and prompt 
lowering in fatigued muscle by this agent." 

"It is quite conclusive," says Gruber, "that adrenalin, 
in some way, causes a rapid recovery of normal irritability 
of muscle after fatigue. The question whether this is done 
by neutralizing, transforming, or destroying the fatigue 
toxins is still obscure. That the action may be on the 
muscle itself has been definitely shown in this" [Gruber's] 
"paper; its effect, however, upon the nervous elements 
or on the region of the neuromuscular union cannot be 
denied. . . . Adrenalin acts quickly, requiring five min- 
utes or less to produce its effect on the threshold" [of fa- 
tigue]. "In that length of time, in some cases, it reduces 
the threshold to normal, whereas rest would require fifteen 
minutes to two hours." 1 

The experiments just quoted show that adrenalin in- 
jected into fatigued muscle has a remarkable recuperative 
effect. The inquiry arises at once then, Is there any 
arrangement in the body by which adrenalin is supplied 
and made to serve the same purpose during life ? Experi- 
ments have answered this question in the affirmative. 
The suprarenal capsules are glands, situated above the 
kidneys, which secrete a substance, to which the name 
adrenalin has been given. This secretion passes into the 
blood. Investigations 2 have demonstrated that artificial 

1 Op. cit., p. 354. 

1 T. R. Elliott, Journal of Physiology, vol. 44, p. 400; Otto Folin, W. B. 
Cannon, and W. Denis, Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 13, p. 477; 
W. B. Cannon and Henry Lyman, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 31, 
P- 376. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 193 

stimulation of the splanchnic nerves increases this secretory- 
activity, and as a result the adrenalin in the blood is in- 
creased. Here, then, is a mechanism by which the adrenal 
glands can be made to discharge their secretion into the 
blood. 

Several years ago, it was observed 1 that, with artificial 
stimulation of the splanchnic nerve, a muscle did "for a 
short period 80 per cent more work than before splanchnic 
stimulation, and for a considerably longer period exhibited 
an intermediate betterment of its efficiency." At that 
time a considerable part of this improvement was ascribed 
to the increased blood-flow resulting from splanchnic stim- 
ulation. The investigators raised the question, however, 
as to whether this explanation was sufficient. Later in- 
vestigation 2 verified this effect of increased blood-flow 
through excitation of the splanchnic nerve, but it proved, 
in addition, that the recovery of muscle and its strength- 
ened action was due in part to a specific action of adrena- 
lin itself. Splanchnic stimulation is thus seen to promote 
recovery of muscle from fatigue and increase its action in 
two ways, first, by increasing the arterial blood-pressure 
and so cleansing the working muscles with fresh blood, 
and second, by liberating adrenalin, which acts specifically 
upon muscles, restoring their working power. 

How, then, does this work out in life? It is clear, as 
Cannon has indicated, 3 that increased arterial pressure 
would be highly serviceable to animals in times of stress. 
It would clear away the waste and fatigue products. Now 
adrenalin, secreted by the adrenal glands and passed into 
the blood, does this and more. "The heart, the lungs, and 
the brain, as well as the skeletal muscles, are in times of 

1 W. B. Cannon and L. B. Nice, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 32, 
p. 44- 

J Charles M. Gruber, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 32, p. 221, 
vol. 33, p. 335, and vol. 34, p. 89. 

* Walter B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage, 
191 5, pp. 132/. 



194 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

excitement abundantly supplied with blood taken from 
organs of less importance in critical moments." It also 
tones up the muscles that have become fatigued through 
continued activity. Emotional excitement, of course, al- 
ways accompanies stress and danger. Consequently, the 
relation of excitement to adrenal secretion is important. 

Adrenal secretion is known to be increased during strong 
emotions. This has clearly been demonstrated in a cat 
placed near a barking dog, and Elliott 1 observed that no 
greater excitement is needed in animals than the strange- 
ness of new quarters to induce a greater discharge of ad- 
renalin into the blood. 

Have we not here, then, a possible explanation for the 
failure to observe fatigue in school children ? The young- 
sters know that they are to be tested for something. The 
conditions of class routine are changed. Perhaps a 
stranger comes into the school to give the tests. The 
situation is surely as "exciting" as the new quarters for 
the animals that Elliott tested. One who has given un- 
usual tests of any sort knows well how alert and animated 
the children become. It is also a matter of common ex- 
perience that the fatigue of adults often vanishes in even 
mild excitement. We know that under excitement the 
adrenal glands secrete and as a result physical fatigue dis- 
appears. To be sure, this has been proven only for mus- 
cular fatigue, but as Gruber has said: "Its effect upon 
nervous elements . . . cannot be denied." If the blood 
circulation of the brain is controlled by the autonomic sys- 
tem, and there is some evidence for this, then the tonic 
effect of adrenalin, already demonstrated in muscular fa- 
tigue, is also operative in mental activity. Further, there 
is no doubt that the increased arterial pressure flushes the 
nerve-cells of the higher centres as well as the muscular 
tissue, removing the fatigue products, and this is itself 
invigorating. 

1 T. R. Elliott, Journal of Physiology, vol. 44, p. 409. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 195 

There are, then, two physiological reasons why fatigue 
in its early stages may not be discovered by the tests usu- 
ally given; the first is that fatigue substances in small 
quantities are stimulating, and the second is that adrena- 
lin secreted under excitement and passed into the blood 
dissipates fatigue by increasing arterial pressure and by 
acting directly upon muscles, and perhaps upon nervous 
elements. Thus the condition that is sought disappears 
by reason of its very presence or because of the animation 
aroused by the attempts to find it. One may seriously 
doubt, however, whether fatigue is present in many cases. 
Children fortunately are endowed with an indifference to 
the demands of their teachers. If they did all that they 
are told to do and did it as well as they are told they 
should, every school must needs be equipped with an 
adrenalin laboratory — like Weichardt's antifatigue-toxin 
factory. Happily, native indolence comes to the aid of 
children, and they refuse to be overworked. Undoubtedly, 
they could do much more without fatigue than they ac- 
tually accomplish if the things at which they are set ap- 
pealed to them as worth while. Subjects of study should 
not be made easy, but their value and significance should 
be evident to those working in them. And, after all, this 
is a very human demand. 

As one looks through the voluminous literature on fa- 
tigue 1 one is impressed by the fact that "fatigue," as ordi- 
narily investigated and measured, is exceedingly complex 
and that many times it is not fatigue that is tested but 
inattention and the inability to ignore sensations, feel- 
ings, and thoughts of one sort or another which have no 
definite relation to fatigue. Sleepiness, discomfort from 
the hard, straight-backed chair, temporary ennui for the 

1 The investigations are too numerous to cite, but excellent bibliographies 
are given by C. S. Yoakum in Psychological Review Monograph Supplement, 
no. 46, 1909, and by F. C. Dockeray in the Kansas University Science Bul- 
letin, vol. 9, 1915. 



196 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

task in hand, and staleness on account of the ennui, as well 
as thoughts of pleasanter activities, are a few illustrations 
from the many that might be mentioned. " I was con- 
stantly surprised," says Thorndike, 1 in his analysis of this 
condition, "to find myself when feeling, as I would cer- 
tainly have said, 'mentally tired,' unable to demonstrate 
in the feeling anything more than emotional repugnance 
to the idea of doing mental work. On at least half the 
occasions this seemed to be all there was." 

The feeling of lassitude, again, is quite commonly the 
result of lack of physical exercise. It has been observed 
that adults who engage in vigorous out-of-door work or 
sports, without overdoing, require less sleep and accom- 
plish more mental work without fatigue. The sensations 
of strain and the feeling of effort may be due, also, to the 
disagreeable monotony of the task. As a relief from ennui, 
mere change is recuperative, and this is probably another 
reason why experiments and tests so frequently reveal lit- 
tle fatigue. The student may be weary from his previous 
work, but not fatigued. 

Curves showing the progress of work, aside from the 
practice effect, are curves of a good many more things 
than fatigue. Pleasure and displeasure are important fac- 
tors in postponing or hastening fatigue. Wright noticed 2 
in his investigations that "the fatigue accompanying work 
is not so great when the person is working under the direct 
stimulus of a definite aim, notwithstanding the fact that 
he has at the same time produced an increase in the amount 
of work." The aim gives point and zest to what would 
otherwise be a disagreeable task, and it prevents the sen- 
sations, feelings, and thoughts mentioned above from aris- 
ing in the mind. This is always the effect of a purpose in 
which one is interested. Aimless work is soon reduced to 
drudgery, and few activities are more fatiguing. The more 

1 Psychological Review, vol. 7, p. 547. 

2 W. R. Wright, Psychological Review, vol. 13, p. 23. 



FATIGUE AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY 197 

immediate and direct the aim and the more it concerns the 
present interests of the worker, the less likely is the mental 
condition commonly regarded as fatigue to appear. Since 
we may suppose that toxic products are always produced 
by continuous physical or mental activity, the difference 
in the effect of pleasant and dreary work would seem to 
lie in the rapidity with which they are disposed of or elimi- 
nated. It is not unlikely that the freer blood-circulation 
and the buoyant feeling attending the exhilaration of plea- 
sure carries away these toxic products more rapidly than 
in the more sluggish condition of ennui. At all events, it 
is clear that disagreeable, monotonous work fatigues and 
wears one out more quickly than pleasant occupations. 
Perhaps this is one reason for the prodigious and at the 
same time unimpairing work of von Humboldt, Mommsen, 
and Edison. Such men are fortunate enough to have found 
work in which they could engage with unmitigated joy. 



CHAPTER VI 
CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 

Not long ago one of our leading monthly magazines 
exhibited a tragic scene. A man with wild despair pic- 
tured in his face was tearing his dishevelled hair in a most 
indiscreet manner, and under the picture were emblazoned 
the portentous words, "I forgot." The advertisement 
then went on to inform the readers where they might pur- 
chase a memory system with which they could remember 
five thousand facts. 

The success of such advertisements in selling the lessons 
indicates that remembering is, to a large extent, a "lost 
art," and that people commonly regard information as the 
most important factor in memory and intelligence. But 
what should we do with five thousand isolated facts if we 
had them ? We all have many more now than we are able 
to use. 

The first problem in connection with memory, therefore, 
is to learn how to make use of facts. Memory of so much 
information as can be used will then take care of itself, 
for facts that are applied are retained. Information is of 
value only to the extent to which it enters into one's think- 
ing. It is the raw material out of which thoughts are 
made. But thinking, we have seen, is not a mechanical 
process. It does not come from merely piling up facts. 
Not even when the facts are put together in some sort of 
order, after the manner of the bricks that make a house, 
does thinking occur. An artistic arrangement of facts 
may produce day-dreams, but thinking is directed toward 
a definite end, like solving a problem or reaching a con- 
clusion. 

At its lowest terms thinking requires selection of mate- 

198 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 199 

rial with reference to its service in promoting a reasonable 
conclusion. Mere facts have no significance. Only as 
they have meaning in relation to other facts do they gain 
importance. Evidently, then, understanding an event re- 
quires for its interpretation the aid of all available infor- 
mation. In this way facts acquire meaning and the sig- 
nificance of the event is understood. This, of course, fre- 
quently calls for extensive knowledge and seems to imply 
that everything which one finds in the course of one's 
study and reading should be remembered. This is not 
true, however, as we shall see if we go a little further. 
The use of the material of knowledge and its accurate 
recall are two very different matters. One may, for ex- 
ample, remember the conclusion reached without recalling 
all the details leading to the conclusion. "Intuitions" are 
another illustration. To a large extent they are the 
residua of experiences which were not, and perhaps could 
not be, analyzed. They are the "impressions" left in 
memory, but not recognized as facts of personal experi- 
ences. Their source is much the same sort of submerged 
memories as some of the more spectacular instances to 
which reference will be made in this chapter. Again, 
selection of material is always for a definite purpose. 
Consequently, only certain facts from among those actually 
conserved in memory are desired at any given moment. 
But let us go a little further in our consideration of the 
use of memory. 

Information from the standpoint of memory is of two 
kinds: That which we need so constantly that it must be 
kept "in mind," and that which we may look up as occa- 
sion arises. Some things should not be remembered. 
Efficiency requires, among other things, that the mind be 
not overloaded. It is as important to forget as to remem- 
ber. But we must forget the right things. Here is where 
selection begins. A lawyer should remember the trend of 
important court decisions, but when he needs the details 



200 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

he knows where to find them. What one should remem- 
ber is a matter of judgment. The important thing, how- 
ever, is that this selection be a thoughtful act and not left 
to chance, as is so frequently the case. 

Interest is usually said to be the determining factor in 
deciding what one shall remember. This interest may be 
racial — spontaneous, or involuntary. A boy can tell you 
at once the record of national baseball-clubs and the bat- 
ting average of the individual players. Again, this interest 
may be acquired from the necessities of a situation. The 
writer once watched a young negro take the hats of over 
two hundred strangers as they entered the dining-room 
of a large hotel. So far as could be observed no system 
was followed in arranging the hats on the rack. Indeed, 
a system itself would have been an exceedingly difficult 
feat of memory, since the guests did not come out in the 
order in which they entered, and only a few of the dining- 
tables could be seen by the attendant. Yet he did not 
make a single mistake in distributing the hats. As soon 
as he saw a man approaching he went at once to the rack 
and got the right hat. 

Many facts, however, indicate that interest is only a 
partial explanation. It is clear that many more experi- 
ences are conserved than come into conscious memory 
under any circumstances of normal, every-day life. Some- 
times these conserved experiences affect our behavior 
without our being aware either of the experiences or of 
their influence. We do not recall the events. Even when 
we do they may not be connected in our minds as causal 
factors of our actions. The purpose in the present chap- 
ter is, first, to describe briefly a few of these singular phe- 
nomena of memory, and, second, to show that these con- 
served experiences, even though we are not conscious of 
them, may profoundly affect our thinking and acting. 

Helen Keller has reported 1 an incident in her life which 

1 The Story of My Life, pp. 63-69. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 201 

shows the indelible record that experience may write upon 
the mind and its irresistible though unconscious influence. 
At about the age of twelve Miss Keller wrote a little story 
which she called Autumn Leaves. "I thought then," she 
says, "that. I was 'making up a story/ as children say, and 
I eagerly sat down to write it before the ideas should slip 
from me. My thoughts flowed easily; I felt a sense of 
joy in the composition. Words and images came tripping 
to my finger ends, and as I thought out sentence after 
sentence I wrote them on my Braille slate. . . . 

"When the story was finished I read it to my teacher, 
and I recall now vividly the pleasure I felt in the more 
beautiful passages, and my annoyance at being interrupted 
to have the pronunciation corrected. At dinner it was 
read to the assembled family, who were surprised that I 
could write so well. Some one asked me if I had read it 
in a book. 

"The question surprised me very much, for I had not 
the faintest recollection of having had it read to me. I 
spoke up and said: 'Oh, no, it is my story, and I have 
written it for Mr. Anagnos.' 

"Accordingly, I copied the story and sent it to him for 
his birthday. It was suggested that I should change the 
title from Autumn Leaves to The Frost King, which I did. 
I carried the little story to the post-office myself, feeling 
as if I were walking on air. . , . 

"Mr. Anagnos was delighted with The Frost King, and 
published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports. . . . 
I had been in Boston only a short time when it was dis- 
covered that a story similar to The Frost King, called The 
Frost Fairies, by Miss Margaret T. Canby, had appeared 
before I was born in a book called Birdie and His Friends. 
The two stories were so much alike in thought and lan- 
guage that it was evident Miss Canby's story had been 
read to me, and that mine was — a plagiarism. It was 
difficult to make me understand this; but when I did 



202 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

understand I was astonished and grieved. No child ever 
drank deeper of the cup of bitterness than I did. I had 
disgraced myself; I had brought suspicion upon those I 
loved best. And yet, how could it possibly have happened ? 
I racked my brain until I was weary to recall anything 
about the frost that I had read before I wrote The Frost 
King; but I could remember nothing except the common 
reference to Jack Frost and a poem for children, The Freaks 
of the Frost, and I knew I had not used that in my com- 
position. . . . 

"Miss Sullivan 1 had never heard of The Frost Fairies 
or of the book in which it was published. With the assis- 
tance of Doctor Alexander Graham Bell she investigated 
the matter carefully, and at last it came out that Mrs. 
Sophia C. Hopkins had a copy of Miss Canby's Birdie 
and His Friends in 1888, the year that we spent the sum- 
mer with her at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to 
find her copy, but she has told me that at that time, while 
Miss Sullivan was away on a vacation, she had tried to 
amuse me by reading from various books, and although 
she could not remember reading The Frost Fairies any 
more than I, yet she felt sure that Birdie and His Friends 
was one of them. 

"The stories had little or no meaning for me then, but 
the mere spelling of the strange words was sufficient to 
amuse a little child who could do almost nothing to amuse 
herself; and although I do not recall a single circumstance 
connected with the reading of the stories, yet I cannot 
help thinking that I made a great effort to remember the 
words, with the intention of having my teacher explain 
them when she returned. One thing is certain, the lan- 
guage was ineffaceably stamped upon my brain, though 
for a long time no one knew it, least of all myself. . . . 

"I have read The Frost Fairies since, also the letters I 
wrote in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find 

1 Miss Keller's teacher. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 203 

in one of them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 
29, 1891, words and sentiments exactly like those of the 
book. At the time, I was writing The Frost King, and this 
letter, like many others, contains phrases which show 
that my mind was saturated with the story." 

Evidently, the mind absorbs vastly more from reading 
and conversation than has been supposed. Miss Keller's 
experience reveals undreamed-of possibilities for indirect 
and incidental training of literary style and for imparting 
ideas and incentives to action. Past thoughts which re- 
turn to mind — old friends yet unrecognized — exert a pro- 
found influence upon belief and conduct. This is one 
phase of what is called experience. We grow uncon- 
sciously into opinions, the source of which we are often 
unable to discover. But, while "forgotten" experiences 
at times play a leading role in mental development, there 
is a good deal of evidence to show that the voluntary 
memory of most people is hardly one-half efficient. 

Seneca is said to have been able to repeat in exact order 
2,000 disconnected words which he had heard spoken but 
once; Cyrus and Caesar knew the names of all the soldiers 
in their respective armies, and Themistocles could address 
by name 21,000 Athenian citizens. Probably these stories 
exaggerate the facts, as is usual after men have become 
famous, but at any rate they indicate that these men pos- 
sessed remarkable memories. There were, of course, in- 
centives which are, perhaps, not so strong to-day. The 
personal factor, doubtless, loomed larger than in this day 
of long-distance connections. Nevertheless, the memorial 
achievements of these men, even after the proper discount 
has been made, was probably exceptional, and they reveal 
possibilities which may be approximated if not fully at- 
tained. 

The statement is sometimes made that no experience is 
irretrievably lost, that everything which one hears or sees 
is conserved as potential memories. This is probably not 



20 4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

true, yet remarkable instances are cited which indicate 
that very much more is conserved than is commonly sup- 
posed. Coleridge has related a case which, if correctly 
reported, is one of the most remarkable of which we have 
any knowledge. 

A year or two before Coleridge's arrival at Gottingen 
something happened which "had not then ceased to be a 
frequent subject of conversation" in the town. "A young 
woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither 
read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during 
which, according to the statements of all the priests and 
monks of the neighborhood, she became possessed, and, as 
it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued inces- 
santly talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pom- 
pous tones and with most distinct enunciation. . . . The 
case had attracted the particular attention of a young 
physician, and by his statement many eminent physiolo- 
gists and psychologists had visited the town and cross- 
examined the" [persons] "on the spot. Sheets full of her 
ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were 
found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible 
each for itself, but with little or no connection with each 
other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only could be 
traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the 
Rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy was out of the 
question. Not only had the young woman ever been a 
harmless, simple creature, but she was evidently laboring 
under a nervous fever. . . . The young physician deter- 
mined to trace her past life step by step. . . . He, at 
length, succeeded in discovering the place where her pa- 
rents had lived . . . and" [learned from an uncle] "that the 
patient had been charitably taken by an old Protestant 
pastor at nine years" [of age], "jand had remained with him 
some years. . . . Anxious inquiries were then, of course, 
made concerning the pastor's habits; and the solution of 
the phenomenon was soon obtained. For it appeared that 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 205 

it had been the old man's custom for years to walk up and 
down a passage of his house into which the kitchen-door 
opened, and to read to himself with a loud voice out of 
his favorite books. . . . Among the books were found a 
collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of 
the Greek and Latin fathers; and the physician succeeded 
in identifying so many passages with those taken down at 
the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain 
in any rational mind concerning the true origin of the 
impressions made on her nervous system." l One of the 
amazing features of this case, if correctly reported, is that 
the woman could not have understood any of the sentences 
which she heard and afterward, according to Coleridge, 
repeated. 

Under certain unusual conditions a flood of "forgotten" 
memories may sweep through our mind. Apparently a 
channel must be cut into the series of submerged experi- 
ences to give the flow an outlet. Then some connection 
with the present mental content is needed. As we shall 
soon see, the channels are nervous paths. Analogies are 
always imperfect, but the facts seem to justify some such 
description of the process. Sometimes no reason for the 
stupendous burst of memories can be discovered beyond 
the impressiveness of the moment. At such times no 
cause can be assigned except the favorable mental attitude. 

When one is drowning, for example, the events of one's 
past life sometimes rush with incredible swiftness and ac- 
curacy through the mind. Many of these details have not 
been recalled for years, and some of them have been long 
forgotten, in the ordinary acceptance of the word. Such an 
experience of Rear- Admiral Sir Francis Beauford is related 
by Harriet Martineau. During the brief period in which 
he was sinking for the third time it seemed as if every 
event of his past life was reviewed. "The course of those 
thoughts I can even now in a great measure retrace," he 

1 Bibliographia Literaria, New York, 1847, vol. I, pp. 234-235. 



206 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

told Miss Martineau. "The event which had just taken 
place; the awkwardness which had produced it; the bustle 
it must have occasioned; the effect it would have on a 
most affectionate father; the manner in which he would 
disclose it to the rest of the family, and a thousand other 
circumstances minutely associated with home, were the 
first series of reflections that occurred. Then they took a 
wider range: our last cruise; a former voyage and ship- 
wreck; my school, the progress I had made there, and the 
time I had misspent, and even all my boyish pursuits and 
adventures. Thus travelling backward, every past in- 
cident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection 
in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, 
as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute 
and collateral feature. In short, the whole period of my 
existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of pano- 
ramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied 
by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection 
on its cause or its consequences; indeed, many trifling 
events which had been long forgotten then crowded into 
my imagination, and with the character of recent famil- 
iarity." 1 

Admiral Beauford was convinced that this extensive 
and detailed review lasted only during submersion. In 
that case it was completed in about two minutes. If it 
continued until he was restored to consciousness it lasted 
twenty minutes. It will be observed that something more 
than a biographical review was given. There were filial 
and moral reflections. In some ways it is a striking pic- 
ture of the mind at its best, judging motives, cause and 
effect, and untrammelled by the restraints and inhibitions 
of normal, conscious thinking. 

There are other ways, however, in which "lost" memo- 
ries may disclose themselves. Not infrequently those ac- 
customed to follow trails through dense woods are unable 

1 Biographical Sketches, London, 1870, pp. 219/. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 207 

to recall the paths or direction that they took to reach 
their destination. Yet, several years later, when they 
again set out upon the same trip, the journey is a continu- 
ous succession of familiar objects and vistas. Here half 
a dozen trails cross; but a stone or tree, or some other 
familiar object, indicates the route, though so far as the 
traveller is aware he gave no unusual attention to these 
landmarks when he first took the trip. But more striking 
instances are sometimes observed. 

William B. Carpenter has given an interesting case 
which shows how experiences of childhood may be im- 
pressed and conserved though the "memory" reveals 
nothing of them. Later, when a part of the same child- 
hood's experience is again witnessed, the entire scene, in 
all its details, is reproduced as a vision. 

"Several years ago," says Carpenter, "the Reverend 
S. Hansard, now rector of Bethnal Green, was doing cleri- 
cal duty for a time at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex; and 
while there he one day went over with a party of friends 
to Pevensey Castle, which he did not remember ever to 
have previously visited. As he approached the gateway 
he became conscious of a very vivid impression of having 
seen it before; and he 'seemed to himself to see' not only 
the gateway itself but donkeys beneath the arch, and people 
on the top of it. His conviction that he must have visited 
the castle on some former occasion — although he had 
neither the slightest remembrance of such a visit nor 
any knowledge of having been in the neighborhood before 
going to Hurstmonceaux — made him inquire from his 
mother whether she could throw any light on the matter. 
She at once informed him that, being in that part of the 
country when he was about eighteen months old, she had 
gone over with a large party, and had taken him in the 
pannier of a donkey; that the elders of the party having 
brought lunch with them had eaten it on the roof of the 
gateway, where they would have been seen from below, 



208 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

while he had been left on the ground with the attendants 
and donkeys." l Evidently, even at this early age, im- 
pressions were so deeply made as to be preserved through 
long years of forgetfulness; and when they reappeared they 
had no place in Mr. Hansard's experiences. They did not 
belong with his personal memories. 

Some of these facts of memory seem incredible. Aside 
from the apparent accuracy of the reports, however, they 
are made plausible through the reproduction of forgotten 
events by automatic writing, crystal vision, and hypnosis. 
These latter cases reveal possibilities of conservation and 
reproduction of experiences hitherto hardly fancied even 
in the most reckless imaginative literature. We cite a few 
instances for illustration. 

Doctor Morton Prince has described two experiments in 
crystal vision. 2 The subject was a young woman, who at 
the time was one of Doctor Prince's patients. A glass ball 
such as is commonly used not being at hand, an ordinary 
electric-light bulb, disconnected from the wires, was sub- 
stituted. When Miss X, who had not been hypnotized, 
looked into the bulb, she saw and described a scene which 
had no place in her memory, and hence had no meaning 
to her. Under hypnosis she repeated the description of 
the occurrence, with the addition of further details, includ- 
ing its time and place. Afterward, on carefully going over 
the events of that period, she recalled the event. It was 
a trivial incident of too little importance for voluntary 
recall. 

At another time, 3 disturbed because she had absent- 
mindedly torn up two ten-dollar bills and thrown the 
pieces away, she arose in her sleep, shortly after discover- 
ing her loss, and hid the remainder of her money under 
the table-cloth. She also placed two books, a red and a 

1 Principles of Mental Physiology, by William B. Carpenter, p. 431. 
* " An Experimental Study of Vision," Brain, vol. 21, p. 528. 
'Ibid. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 209 

green one, as she afterward found, over the place of its 
concealment. The next day, unable to find this money, 
she was greatly distressed, since it was all she had. She 
said nothing to Doctor Prince about her loss, but he 
meanwhile had learned of it while she was under the in- 
fluence of hypnosis. Without disclosing his knowledge he 
handed her the electric bulb — she was not hypnotized at 
the time — told her to look into it, think of her money, and 
she would learn what had become of it. "She looked into 
the globe and saw herself in bed in her room. She then 
saw herself get up, her eyes being closed, and walk up and 
down the room; then she saw herself going to the bureau 
drawer, taking out her money, going to the table, taking 
up the table-cloth with the books, putting the money on 
the table, covering it with the cloth and putting the red 
book and the green book on the top of it. . . . Miss X 
reported on her next visit that she had found the money 
where she had seen it in the globe." 

The glass ball used in such experiments is merely a device 
for stimulating suggestions that arouse associations which 
have not recently been active; perhaps, indeed, they have 
never acted in connection with the event that furnishes 
the motive for the effort to revive them. The glass ball 
also aids in concentrating attention and produces hallu- 
cinatory visions that start associative processes which may 
awaken forgotten memories. The writer hastens to add 
that there is not the slightest evidence for an occult ex- 
planation of crystal vision or of automatic writing. 1 These 
revived memories are memories of actual experiences — 
things that the person has done, heard, or seen — which 
have left their record in just the same way as do ordinary 
memories. The difference between the two lies in the 
difficulty of recall in the case of so-called "forgotten" 
memories. For this reason artificial means of stimulating 

1 For the latest investigation of several of the " occult " phenomena, see 
Psychical Research Monographs, vol. i, Stanford University, 19 17. 



210 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

revival must be employed, and a crystal or electric-light 
bulb serves this purpose. 

Let us now turn to another sort of device for recovering 
lost memories. A few years ago Mrs. A. W. Verrall, a 
teacher of Latin and Greek in England, became interested 
in automatic writing and, after repeated failures, acquired 
considerable proficiency. In her published experiments, 1 
Latin, Greek, and English were at times mixed, as might 
be expected of an Englishwoman fairly conversant with 
the ancient languages. Her automatic composition is 
replete with selections which she had "forgotten." These 
quotations are not always strictly accurate, and here again 
the resemblance to the defects of ordinary memory is evi- 
dent. Even when she was acquainted with the quotations 
they were rarely, if ever, those with which she was most 
familiar. "The Latin and the Greek of the script are," 
Mrs. Verrall says, "at once more fluent and more faulty 
than my own; the vocabulary is larger, embracing words 
unknown to me, though often tolerably obvious in mean- 
ing and correctly formed; the grammatical construction is 
less strict than in classical writers, and in the case of the 
Latin the whole turn of phraseology is often mediaeval, 
or at least very 'late'; the mistakes are frequent, and often 
of a type quite unlikely to be made by myself; in fact, the 
suggestion, especially of the Latin, is that the language 
used is one in which the writer habitually expresses him- 
self, and is certainly not the language of the classical 
writers known to me." 

An interesting feature about some of Mrs. Verrall's auto- 
matic writing was that it wrote Greek and English verse; 
yet "I am no poet," she says, "and I have great difficulty 
in producing even a short set of verses in English." Again, 
some of her automatic script was replete with puns; but 
"I have hardly ever made a pun in my life," she continues. 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 20, 1906, especially 
pp. 276 ff. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 211 

"I do not easily see analogies between words, and I am 
seldom amused by comic puns. But it is otherwise with 
the automatic script. It is fond of punning, and especially 
of punning upon names." 

Further, by the automatic device, Mrs. Verrall wrote 
stories and tales. One, she felt quite certain, was remi- 
niscent of the first Idyll of Theocritus, which she had read 
twenty-five years before and had not seen since. Another 
tale, the Garden of the Hesperides, was due, as she was con- 
vinced, to another literary reminiscence not recognized 
till much later. Though she did not remember the refer- 
ences at the time, she afterward discovered in a round- 
about way that she had read a book containing some of 
them a number of years before they were reproduced 
through automatic writing. Much of the material she 
was unable to account for at the time of the writing, but 
diligent search supplied the source in a number of these 
cases, and then she remembered having previously seen it. 

The present writer admits quite freely that finding the 
data of the automatic productions, in tales and in other 
material which Mrs. Verrall had read years before, or 
upon which her eye had incidentally fallen, does not ex- 
plain the phenomenon of automatic writing; but it brings 
it into line with other more common facts of memory, 
and then it becomes no more mysterious than ordinary 
retention, about which, to be sure, no one can pretend to 
very definite knowledge. It is well known, however, that 
our eye frequently runs over pages of a newspaper, and, 
though we read little or nothing, we may find months or 
years later that some of it, perhaps much, returns to 
memory with amazing fulness, if not with complete 
accuracy. 

Mrs. Verrall's automatic Latin composition suggests 
two interesting observations. First, since her compositions 
were largely composed of selections long forgotten, lost 
memories were recovered; and, second, among these re- 



212 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

vived memories were passages with a noticeable resem- 
blance to mediaeval Latin. As Mrs. Verrall was not accus- 
tomed to use these language forms and structures a new 
element other than memory seems to be introduced. The 
explanation, however, appears to be as follows: mediaeval 
Latin has a larger vocabulary of abstract terms than has 
classical Latin, and many English abstract words came to 
us from the schoolmen through the medium of late mediae- 
val Latin. It would therefore be quite natural for Mrs. 
Verrall's forgotten memories to be expressed in mediaeval 
forms. A bit of evidence that this might be expected is 
found in the Latin expressions commonly used by college 
students. Early college Latin compositions are likely to 
be literal translations of English abstract words into the 
Latin from which they were derived and for this reason 
they resemble the mediaeval rather than the classical. In 
other words, Mrs. Verrall's revived memories, without 
the restraint of conscious selection of words, took the line 
of least resistance — mediaeval Latin, with which she was 
not wholly unacquainted. 

There are also other ways in which forgotten experiences 
may be recovered. Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson has reported 1 
an instructive case of recall through hypnotism. The 
subject, Miss C, "purported to meet a certain lady, 
Blanche Poynings, who lived in the time of Richard the 
Second. This lady was described as a friend of the Earl 
and Countess of Salisbury, and a great many details were 
given about these and other personages of the time, and 
about the manners and customs of that age. The per- 
sonages referred to, the details given in connection with 
them, and especially the genealogical data, were found on 
examination to be correct, though many of them were such 
as apparently it would not have been easy to ascertain 
without considerable historical research. Miss C. had 
not studied the period, and could not recall reading any 

1 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 12, 1905-1906, p. 2S7. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 213 

book bearing upon it other than a novel called John 
Standish, which has been examined and found not to con- 
tain the information she had given. Ultimately, however, 
the source on which she had unconsciously drawn was 
discovered through a planchette. Miss C, writing with 
the planchette, received communications purporting to 
come from Blanche Poynings, which finally, by a very cir- 
cuitous route, and after much evasion, gave the name of a 
book by E. Holt, entitled The Countess Maud, as being the 
book in which she, Blanche, and the other people referred 
to would be found. Miss C. then remembered that there 
was such a book and that it had been read to her" [when 
she was eleven years old], "but she could not remember 
that it had anything to do with Blanche Poynings, or 
with the other characters as to whom she had given infor- 
mation. On examination, however, the book proved to 
contain all of the personages and facts she had given." 

Much of the information which Miss C. gave was con- 
tained in the appendix. This was exceedingly dull. So 
it is highly improbable that she read it at eleven years of 
age or that her aunt should have read it to her. "It would 
seem, therefore, that a good deal of information must 
have been left in her mind while she was simply turning 
over the leaves in the process, which she now recalls, of 
coloring some of the illustrations." 

Accurate observation, it is usually said, is the prerequi- 
site for recall; but even observation, as we ordinarily use 
the word, does not seem to be always necessary for im- 
pressing and conserving facts and details. Doctor Morton 
Prince gives the following instance which he himself ob- 
served: "I asked B. C. A. (without warning and after hav- 
ing covered her eyes) to describe the dress of a friend who 
was present, and with whom she had been conversing for 
perhaps some twenty minutes. She was unable to do so 
beyond saying that he wore dark clothes. I then found 
that I myself was unable to give a more detailed descrip- 



214 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tion of his dress, although we had lunched and been to- 
gether about two hours. B. C. A. was then asked to 
write a description automatically. Her hand wrote as 
follows (she was unaware that her hand was writing): 
'He has on a dark greenish-gray suit, a stripe in it — a little 
rough stripe; black bow-cravat; shirt with three little 
stripes in it; black laced shoes, false teeth; one finger gone; 
three buttons on his coat.' 

"The written description was absolutely correct. The 
stripes in the coat were almost invisible. I had not no- 
ticed his teeth or the loss of a finger, and had to count 
the buttons to make sure of their number, owing to their 
partial concealment by the folds of the unbuttoned coat. 
The shoe-strings, I am sure, under the conditions, "would 
have escaped nearly every one's observation." 1 

Were it the intention of the author to write a "Wonder 
Book" on memory, cases such as have been given could 
be multiplied to fill a volume. The purpose thus far, how- 
ever, has been to show the almost incredible extent to 
which one's experiences jnay be conserved. The instances 
which have been quoted are so amazing that the credulous 
are inclined to seek at once for an occult explanation. 
The release of submerged memories in such cases, however, 
is no more enigmatical than their recovery in less spec- 
tacular instances. It is not uncommon for the sight of a 
childhood acquaintance to bring to mind a succession of 
memories which have not been recalled for fifty years. 
Indeed, objects and persons wholly unconnected with the 
childhood events may accomplish this through a similarity 
so remote and obscure as to wholly elude discovery. 

Another illustration of the renewal of associations long 
lost to voluntary control was recently related to the 
writer. A friend says that her brother spoke Spanish al- 
most exclusively when a young child. Later in life he 
forgot the language so completely as to be unable to recall 

1 The Unconscious, pp. 53-54. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 215 

voluntarily more than a few isolated "words. Yet, when 
sleeping, he frequently talked intelligibly and extensively 
in the language. If these less unusual instances do not 
explain the more spectacular, they at least bridge the 
illusory chasm between retention and recall of every-day 
life, and the sensational cases at which the uncritical, who 
are seeking supernatural causes, stand agape; and the ex- 
ceptional manifestations are thus removed from the realm 
of the occult. 

Let us now try to find an explanation for the loss of 
memories and their occasional recovery through the 
strange ways of crystal vision, automatic writing, and 
hypnotism. It should be emphasized, however, that our 
attempt must be speculative and can yield at best only a 
working hypothesis. All that we can hope to do is to 
get a picture of one of the possible explanations for these 
singular phenomena. 

In searching for our explanation no argument is needed 
to show that ideas which have passed from mind return 
under suitable conditions. It is also clear that to be 
remembered, experiences must be registered in some way. 
This record must also be preserved and, finally, it must be 
possible to reproduce it. Recognition — the assurance that 
we have had the experience before — is not essential. This 
is necessary only when what is recalled is to be recognized 
as a phase of one's own past life. Psychological text- 
books include recognition in their definition of memory, 
that a distinction may be made between it and imagina- 
tion. Suppose, however, that you "recall" an event and 
are uncertain whether you actually experienced it, but 
later find that you did. Does the corroboration of its 
feeling of familiarity transform an imagined event into 
memory? Recall of events without the knowledge that 
they have been a part of one's own experience may occur 
in automatic writing, crystal vision, and in hypnosis. Re- 
call, with or without recognition, however, depends upon 



216 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

association. But ideas which have passed out of mind are 
not retained as ideas. Retention, nevertheless, implies 
something to be retained, and, since this something cannot 
be the ideas, thoughts, and feelings themselves, the ques- 
tions at once arise: Where does retention take place, and 
what is it that is retained ? 

To understand this it must be remembered that every 
mental process is accompanied by a physiological process 
in the brain. When we have an experience of any sort a 
change is produced in the cerebral neurones. There are 
indications that one of these changes is of a chemical na- 
ture. Investigation has shown that "a resting nerve gives 
off a definite quantity of carbon dioxide," that "stimula- 
tion increases C0 2 production," and that "C0 2 production 
from the resting nerve proportionally decreases as irrita- 
bility diminishes. These facts prove directly that the 
nerve continuously undergoes chemical changes and that 
nervous irritability is directly connected with a chemical 
phenomenon." 1 

In applying to memory the theory that mental processes 
are always accompanied by physiological processes, it 
should also be noted that neurones correlated, through 
activity, with past experiences are re-aroused by the ex- 
citation of associated nervous processes. Through this 
concomitant activity of mental and physiological processes, 
and by the correlation of sets of neurones through associa- 
tion, neurones become organized into functionally united 
systems. A functionally united system of neurones is a 
group which has been active during an experience, and 
which consequently conserves whatever record of the ex- 
perience remains after it has passed. These systems of 
neurones are distinct from other groups only in the func- 
tional sense. The action and interaction among their cells 
is the physical basis and physiological accompaniment of 
the experience in which they originally participated. These 

1 Shiro Tashiro, The American Journal of Physiology, vol. 32, p. 107. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 217 

systems of neurones are not wholly independent of one 
another. If they were they could be made active only 
from within themselves. They are in physiological con- 
nection with one another, and this larger connection con- 
stitutes the unity of the mind — of the "self." It makes 
each thought and experience a personal matter — i. e., my 
experience. The functional connection of these systems 
of neurones with one another, however, is not as intimate 
as their connections within themselves. Once a system is 
broken into by its associative connection with the processes 
of another system it yields a flood of memories. But the 
trouble is to break through the barrier. This is the prob- 
lem of recall, and we see here that it is also the problem 
of association of ideas. These functionally united systems 
of neurones cannot always be aroused voluntarily. An 
artificial device, like crystal vision or hypnotism, is some- 
times necessary. 

Experiments in hypnotism seem to support the view 
that there are groups of functionally united neurones, since 
certain facts which cannot be recalled in one stage of 
hypnosis may be brought back in another stage. Recall, 
however, whether produced by hypnotism, crystal vision, 
automatic writing, or by voluntary effort, is always the 
outcome of associative processes. The problem, then, is to 
start the associations which will awaken the desired mem- 
ories. The truth of this is frequently seen in daily life. 
The sight of so insignificant a thing as a pencil will sud- 
denly call to mind where one laid some notes for which 
one has spent weeks hunting. This experience of breaking 
through obstructions is at times observed in the normal 
mental state when one tries to recover a line of thought. 
Not infrequently the writer is unable to recall such thoughts 
even with the aid of the notes made at the time. But once 
the cue is found, the thoughts follow, one after the other, 
with amazing accuracy and fulness. The mental atti- 
tude has much to do with success or failure. And this 



218 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

attitude includes, among other things, the marginal as 
well as the focal nervous activity and thoughts. 

Severe effort to recall by force of "will" is not always 
the best method. Not infrequently by relaxing the bodily 
muscles and fixing the attention upon an event connected 
with what he desired to recall and allowing associations 
free play, the writer has succeeded in recalling details 
which refused to yield to voluntary effort. The play of 
associations in this case is promoted by putting oneself in 
the place in which the event occurred, physically, if possi- 
ble; if not, then through the imagination. The writer has 
recalled the place of mislaid monographs, and the authors 
of books from which citations had been made, by sitting 
at his desk, fixing his attention upon some phase of the 
subject, and giving free rein to the interaction of associa- 
tions. Critical examination of any portion of the stream 
of memories that float through the mind at this time in- 
hibits the flow. 

This method of recall resembles a condition which 
Doctor Morton Prince calls "abstraction." By way of 
illustration he tells of a young woman, a university stu- 
dent, who had lost some money which she wished to re- 
cover. "In abstraction she remembered with great vivid- 
ness every detail at the bank-teller's window, where she 
placed her gloves, purse, and umbrella, the checks, the 
money, etc.; then there came memories of seating herself 
at a table in the bank, of placing her umbrella here, her 
purse there, etc.; of writing a letter, and doing other 
things; of absent-mindedly forgetting her gloves and leav- 
ing them on the table; of going to a certain shop, where, 
after looking at various articles and thinking certain 
thoughts and making certain remarks, she finally made 
certain purchases, giving a certain piece of money and 
receiving the change in coin of certain denominations; of 
seeing in her purse the exact denominations of the coins 
which remained; then of going to another shop and similar 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 219 

experiences. Then of numerous details which she had 
forgotten. . . . Through it all ran the successive fortunes 
of her purse until the moment came when, looking into it, 
she found one of the five-dollar gold pieces gone." l 

Recall of forgotten details when under the influence of 
the conditions of the original experience has been noted 
by commentators on criminal jurisprudence. Gross, writ- 
ing on the investigation of crime, says 2 that the best way 
to help a witness to remember accurately is to place him 
in the same circumstances as existed when he experienced 
the events. "We especially recommend this procedure in 
complicated transactions," he says, "when, for example, 
the order of events is important, or when there are several 
actors in the same, and the part played by each must be 
determined. . . . Following this course, we often obtain 
the most astonishing results; people who in the magis- 
trate's chambers remember nothing, change completely 
when they find themselves on the spot; they recall first the 
accessory details and subsequently some most important 
facts." 

We are now ready to answer the first of the two ques- 
tions asked above, i. e., Where does retention take place? 
The registration of ideas or experiences, and the conserva- 
tion of these records occur in the neurones of the brain. 
Some change is produced in the nerve-cells as the result 
of their activity during an experience. A permanently 
altered nervous disposition is established. Quite likely, 
some change also takes place in the nerves themselves. At 
any rate, certain nervous pathways become more perme- 
able because of the experience; and these changes, with 
the increased permeability, reduce the physiological re- 
sistance for nervous impulses. The tendency is, therefore, 
toward the re-arousal of the cerebral activity that occurred 

1 The Unconscious, pp. 25-26. 

2 Criminal Investigation, by Hans Gross, translated by J. and J. C. Adam, 
p. 76. 



220 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

during the original experience when any of these neurones 
are excited through their associative connections. Reten- 
tion is a property of neural tissue. It is the cortical law 
of habit. 

In answer to the second question — What is retained ? — ■ 
several answers have been given. F. W. H. Myers 1 and 
his followers assume a sort of psychological repository — 
the subliminal mind — in which ideas and experiences are 
preserved in their original form, and from which they 
occasionally sally forth into the realm of consciousness. 
Myers' suggestive work at once became strikingly popular 
and started a host of unscientific writers along his trail. 
Unfortunately, however, these followers could not inter- 
pret Myers' blazes. The result was a repetition of his 
words, with little or no intelligible meaning. But, aside 
from the fact that a subliminal psychological storehouse 
does not tally with physiological data, memory is too ex- 
tensive to be explained in this way. There would not be 
shelves enough to hold the countless number of ideas, and 
they would surely get mixed up while in cold storage. 

The view which satisfies the psychological and physio- 
logical requirements is, as we have seen, based on changes 
in the neurones. Various theories 2 have been offered to 
account for the changes produced in the brain by experi- 
ences, and to define the residua left in the neurones after 
stimulation. For our purpose, however, it is sufficient to 
say that memory has a physiological basis, and is primarily 
dependent upon processes which go on in the cortex. This 
is a repetition in terms of memory of what has already 
been said of mental processes in general. One proof of 
this physical basis of memory is that injury of sensory or 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 4, p. 256; Human 
Personality, 1904. 

2 Die Mneme, 1911, by Richard Semon. On Memory, 1896, by Ewald 
Hering. Upon the Inheritance of Acquired Characters, by Eugenio Rignano, 
translated by B. C. H. Harvey. " Sur la Dynamique Chimique du Syst&me 
Nerveux," by T. B. Robertson, Archives de Physiologic, vol. 6, p. 388. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 221 

association areas affects memories. Further evidence is 
furnished by temporary amnesia from a blow on the head, 
as in a football-game, and by cerebral localization. If the 
visual centre is injured visual memories are impaired or 
lost. Now let us see the bearing of these facts upon the 
second question, i. e n What is retained as the basis of 
memory ? 

When the ideas which are to be recalled were first in the 
mind there was an accompanying and underlying neural 
activity. As a consequence of this activity some effect 
was produced upon the cerebral neurones. One of these 
effects is quite certainly the establishing of functional con- 
nections. Then, later, when the recall of the original idea 
is desired, these functional connections facilitate the pas- 
sage of nervous impulses along the path traversed before. 
If recall is successful the same nerve-structures which par- 
ticipated in the original experience are again active, and 
the same mental processes that accompanied the original 
neural activity reoccur. The result of the change caused 
in neurones by an experience is, then, first, a disposition 
to react in the same way whenever these neurones are 
stimulated by associated nervous impulses, and, second, a 
tendency, when they do act again, to reproduce the same 
or similar mental content. In this way thoughts, ideas, 
and experiences are repeated as memories. Memory is thus 
the mental aspect of a habitual response of nerve-centres, 
a repetition of processes which were active in the original 
experience. The record of ideas and experiences which have 
passed from mind but may be recalled as memories is thus 
conserved as physiological, functional complexes. But why 
is the repetition of these physiological processes so often 
suppressed? Why do we forget? 

We are accustomed to say that we forget the things to 
which we do not give attention, that the attention is selec- 
tive, that it fastens upon certain impressions, and that 
what it ignores is forgotten; and there is undoubtedly 



222 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

much truth in these statements. Al Jennings tells an 
amusing story that shows how he forced a district attorney 
and several others to fix their attention upon a wrong date, 
and in this way established an alibi for one of his crimes. 
He and his gang robbed a train on the ist of October. On 
the morning of the 2d of October [the following day] he 
walked into the office of the district attorney, Mr. Pitt- 
man. I now quote from Mr. Jennings. "Pittman," he 
said, "I've been hearing a lot of fool talk about my rob- 
bing trains and going on the dodge. I'm tired of it. I 
intend to surrender, face the music, and clear myself. 
I've a few things to settle up first, then I'm coming in. 
This is October ist; two weeks from to-day, October 15th, 
I'll return. Have your officers ready. And as I left his 
office I repeated: 

"Make a note of it — this is October ist, and I'm coming 
back on the 15th. 

"According to expectation, Pittman was so excited at 
seeing me and hearing of my intentions that the date im- 
pressed itself on his mind only as an inconsequential de- 
tail. He never thought to look it up at the time, and 
when I had use for him it was fixed in his mind — wrong. 

" Going to the saloon of Ike Renfrow, I got him to send 
for Bob Motley, the sheriff, my father, and my brother 
John. Motley was my friend; I knew he wouldn't arrest 
me without a warrant. To them I talked just as I had to 
Pittman, getting the false date — October ist — into their 
minds. Every one was delighted, and no one thought to 
verify my statement of the date. This made a perfect 
alibi, for the robbery had occurred eighty miles away at 
noon of October ist." l 

Attention, however, frequently does not satisfy the 
requirements of an explanation for memory. The follow- 
ing from Arnold Bennett's Old Wives' Tales appeals to com- 
mon experience. Sophia Scales, during her sojourn in 
Paris, gave painful attention to the bitter struggle for the 

1 Beating Back, by Al Jennings and Will Irwin, pp. 121 /. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 223 

privilege of living. Yet, as she was leaving, it was "aston- 
ishing with what liquid tenderness she turned and looked 
back on that hard, fighting, exhausting life in Paris. For, 
even if she had unconsciously liked it, she had never en- 
joyed it. She had always compared France disadvanta- 
geously with England, always resented the French tem- 
perament in business, always been convinced that 'you 
never knew where you were' with French trades-people. 
And now they flitted before her endowed with a wondrous 
charm; so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your feel- 
ings and to reassure you, so neat and prim. And the 
French shops, so exquisitely arranged ! Even a butcher's 
shop in Paris was a pleasure to the eye, whereas the butch- 
er's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she remembered of 
old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab — what a 
bloody shambles ! She longed for Paris again. She longed 
to stretch her lungs in Paris. These people in Bursley 
did not suspect what Paris was." Curious tricks the 
memory plays us. We forget the unpleasant features of a 
past experience and remember the pleasant things. Man 
is always looking back to a golden age, not merely in his- 
tory, but also in his own life. Attention does not explain 
the freaks of memory. 

Under certain conditions, indeed, attention may pro- 
duce confusion and cause one to say the very thing or 
commit the act that one is striving to avoid. Freud 1 
mentions a young physician "who timidly and reverently 
introduced himself to the celebrated Virchow with the 
following words: 'I am Doctor Virchow.' The surprised 
professor turned to him and asked: 'Is your name also 
Virchow?'" The young man had evidently fixed his at- 
tention on what he would say and, perhaps, on what he 
should not say, and then said the wrong thing. 2 

1 Psychopathology of Everyday Life, p. ioo. 

2 Freud ascribes this error of the young physician to the fancied identifi- 
cation of himself with Virchow. This suppressed thought of identification, 
with its associated feelings, Freud calls an "ambition-complex." To the 
writer, however, the explanation seems to be the simpler one given above. 



224 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

An acquaintance of the writer relates a similar instance 
from his own experience. The husband of one of his 
friends died and, in the course of time, the widow married 
again. After the second marriage, when addressing her, 
he continually caught himself with her former name half 
spoken. This tendency has not ceased even after the 
lapse of several years. He ascribes it to his fear lest he 
make the mistake and to the fact that before addressing 
her he thinks her new name and then cautions himself 
against speaking that of her former husband. Her former 
name is thus unintentionally emphasized. 

Another bit of evidence indicative, also, of the inade- 
quacy of the attention theory as a complete explanation 
is that in well-organized minds memories do not owe their 
existence to their own content alone. It is always a ques- 
tion of the relation of that content to other memories, ac- 
tive or suppressed. We recall by association. Since as- 
sociations may be real or fancied, pleasant or unpleasant, 
they leave the door open to all sorts of emotional conflicts 
with a resulting repression of memories. This suppression 
of thoughts and experiences may nullify the influence of 
attention. Charles Darwin, with his keen, analytic mind, 
observed this tendency to forget disagreeable thoughts in 
himself. "I had during many years followed a golden 
rule," he says in his Autobiography, "namely, that when- 
ever a published fact, a new observation or thought, came 
across me which was opposed to my general results, to 
make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I 
had found by experience that such facts and thoughts 
were far more apt to escape from the memory than favor- 
able ones." Nietzsche also noted the tendency of dis- 
agreeable thoughts to vanish from memory. "'I have 
done that,' says my memory. 'I cannot have done that,' 
says my pride, and remains inexorable. Finally my 
memory yields." 1 

1 Jenseits von Gut und Bosen. Viertes Hauptstuck, 68. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 225 

Curiosities of memory would hardly be complete without 
reference to some of the equally strange instances of for- 
getfulness. The two are really one, and, of the two aspects 
of this unitary process, forgetfulness probably requires 
explanation rather than memory itself. Recently Freud 1 
has undertaken an analysis of why we forget and has 
found, as he believes, abundant evidence in support of 
the view that forgetfulness is the result of conflict and 
repression. 

"The motive of forgetting," he says, "is always an un- 
willingness to recall something which may evoke painful 
feelings. . . . This motive universally strives for ex- 
pression in psychic life, but is inhibited through other and 
contrary forces from regularly manifesting itself. ... A 
different factor steps into the foreground in the forgetting 
of resolutions; the supposed conflict resulting in the re- 
pression of the painful becomes tangible, and in the analy- 
sis of the examples one regularly recognizes a counter- will 2 
which opposes but does not put an end to the resolution. 
. . . The same conflict governs the phenomena of erro- 
neously carried-out actions. . . ." 3 

In speaking of erroneous actions Freud continues: "The 
first question (as to the origin of thoughts and emotions 
which find expression in faulty actions) we can answer 
by saying that in a series of cases the origin of the dis- 
turbing thoughts can readily be traced to repressed emo- 
tions of the psychic life. Even in healthy persons, ego- 
tistic, jealous, and hostile feelings and impulses, burdened 
by the pressure of moral education, often utilize the path 
of faulty actions to express in some way their undeniably 
existing force which is not recognized by the higher psychic 
instances" [impulses or ideals]. 

1 Psycho pathology of Everyday Life. 

2 This is the translator's word, but, in the opinion of the present writer, 
counter-force expresses the thought more correctly. 

3 Op. cit., pp. 331-333. 



226 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Freud gives an illustrative instance from his own ex- 
perience: " While taking an examination in philosophy as 
a minor subject I was questioned by the examiner about 
the teaching of Epicurus, and was asked whether I knew 
who took up his teachings centuries later. I answered 
that it was Pierre Gassendi, whom two days before, while 
in a cafe, I happened to hear spoken of as a follower of 
Epicurus. To the question how I knew this I boldly re- 
plied that I had taken an interest in Gassendi for a long 
time. This resulted in a certificate with a magna cum 
laude, but later, unfortunately, also in a persistent ten- 
dency to forget the name of Gassendi. I believe that it 
is due to my guilty conscience that even now I cannot 
retain this name despite all efforts. I had no business 
knowing it at that time." x "In former years," continues 
Freud in this same connection, "I observed that of a great 
number of professional calls I only forgot those that I 
was to make on patients whom I treated gratis, or on col- 
leagues." 

A similar tendency to forget what has unpleasant asso- 
ciations has been mentioned by Doctor Ernest Jones: "In 
my own life," he says, "I have noted numerous instances 
of a purposeful forgetting of appointments, particularly 
with patients. If a given patient is very tedious and un- 
interesting, I am very apt to forget that I have to see him 
at a certain hour, and if a doctor telephones to ask whether 
I can see an interesting case at that hour I am more likely 
than not to tell him that I shall be free then. Indeed, I 
can recall several annoying quandaries that this habit 
has led me into." 2 

An instance illustrating the same tendency to forget the 
unpleasant has recently been reported to the writer by 
an acquaintance. This man has reached his fiftieth birth- 
day, but still has a large amount of work laid out and is 

1 Op. cit., p. 45. 

2 American Journal of Psychology, vol. 22, p. 477. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 227 

loath to think that he has passed the meridian of life. 
The unpleasantness of this thought makes it impossible 
for him to remember his age. When required to give it he 
must invariably figure it out from the year of his birth. 
Even then he has difficulty because he is always uncertain 
of this date. His birthday frequently passes without the 
fact coming into consciousness. 

This tendency to repress unconsciously the unpleasant 
sometimes results in curious displacements and substitu- 
tions. The disagreeable thought may then be unintention- 
ally expressed. An interesting experience is reported by 
Brill. 

A wealthy but not very generous host invited his friends 
to an evening dance. "Everything went well until about 
11.30, when there was an intermission, presumably for 
supper. To the great disappointment of most of the 
guests, there was no supper; instead, they were regaled with 
thin sandwiches and lemonade. As it was close to elec- 
tion day, the conversation was centred on the different 
candidates, and as the discussion grew warmer one of the 
guests, an ardent admirer of the Progressive candidate, 
remarked to his host: 'You may say what you please about 
Teddy, but there is one thing you must admit, he can al- 
ways be depended upon to give one a square meal ' — wish- 
ing to say 'deal.'" 1 

Freud also cites a similar instance from his own experi- 
ences: "While writing a prescription for a woman who 
was especially weighted down by the financial burden of 
her treatment, I was interested to hear her say very sud- 
denly: 'Please do not give me big bills, because I cannot 
swallow them.' Of course she meant to say pills." 2 

According to Freud, the same psychological causes 
underlie the forgetting of proper names, and the recalling 
of trivial, irrelevant experiences of childhood instead of 

1 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. 8, p. 314. 

2 Op. cit., p. 103. 



228 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the more important ones that profoundly affected us at 
the time. In each of these apparently different instances, 
in Freud's opinion, repression of certain memories and 
substitution of others occur. "In both cases we deal with 
the failure of remembering; what should be correctly re- 
produced by memory fails to appear, and instead something 
else comes as a substitute. . . . The stopping and stray- 
ing of the reproducing function indicates more often than 
we suppose that there is an intervention of a prejudicial 
factor, a tendency which favors one memory and at the 
same time works against another." 1 And this prejudicial 
factor, Freud thinks, is the displeasure which the arousal 
of the suppressed memory would cause. 

Mislaying objects is, of course, an instance of forgetting, 
and Freud brings these mistakes under the same general 
principle. "If one looks over the cases of mislaying it 
will be difficult to assume that mislaying is anything other 
than the result of an unconscious intention." 2 

"A man was urged by his wife to attend a social func- 
tion in which he not only took no interest, but which he 
was sure would actually bore him. Yielding to his wife's 
entreaties, he began to take his dress-suit from the trunk 
when he suddenly thought of shaving. After accomplish- 
ing this he returned to the trunk and found it locked. 
Despite a long, earnest search, the key could not be found. 
A locksmith could not be found on Sunday evening, so the 
couple had to send their regrets. On having the trunk 
opened the next morning the lost key was found within. 
The husband had absent-mindedly dropped the key into 
the trunk and sprung the lock. He assured me," says 
Brill, "that this was wholly unintentional and unconscious. 
It must, however, be borne in mind that he did not wish to 
go. There was a motive, as we see, in the mislaying." 3 

Forgetting, then, in Freud's opinion, resolves itself 

l Op. cit., pp. 60-61. 2 Op. cit., p. 148. 

8 A. A. Brill, Psychoanalysis: lis Theory and Practical Application, p. 219. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 229 

into repression of memories through conflict. Ideas as- 
sociated with strong emotions suppress experiences the 
thought of which is repugnant to the dominating emotion. 
In other words, it is a defense against recalling experiences 
unpleasant in themselves or which are associated directly 
or indirectly with disagreeable memories. The associated 
interaction, however, sometimes goes astray, and while we 
wish to forget one thing we actually forget that which we 
desire to recall. This may happen when what we are anx- 
ious to forget forms an associative connection with what we 
wish to remember. Names may be forgotten, according to 
Freud, who seems to regard name-forgetting as typical, in 
this respect, of forgetting in general, "when the name 
itself touches something unpleasant, or when it is brought 
into connection with other associations which are influ- 
enced by such effects. So names can be disturbed on 
their own account or on account of their nearer or more 
remote associative relations in the reproduction." 1 An 
illustration will make this clear. 

"During the weeks just before Christmas," says Doctor 
Frink, 2 "a gentleman was asked by two or three different 
people where certain books could be purchased. He hap- 
pened to know that the books in question were kept in 
stock by a firm of publishers on Twenty- third Street, but 
though he recalled the exact location of this store, and was 
able to give accurate directions for finding it, he could 
not remember the name of the firm. 

"A few days later, when he mentioned the circumstances 
to me, I was able to supply the missing name (Putnam), 
and we attempted to analyze his forgetting, with the fol- 
lowing results: 

"Upon concentrating his mind upon the name in ques- 
tion he immediately recalled that some years before he 
had gone to Putnam's in search of a certain book which he 

1 Op. cit., pp. 52-53. 

2 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. 8, p. 386. 



230 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

wished to present to a young lady he much admired. 
Having obtained the book, he called upon her, but, con- 
trary to his hopes, she received him and his gift in a man- 
ner so cold and forbidding as to occasion him not only 
extreme embarrassment but also a degree of wrath. 

"This memory, together with others of a similar kind, 
which furnished mortifying evidence of his inability to 
win a high place in the lady's esteem, formed a complex 
of such an undoubtedly painful nature that one might 
readily suppose it capable of causing resistances against 
remembering that the above-mentioned firm of booksellers 
exists. But this complex does not account for the fact 
that after he had recalled the existence of this firm, as he 
did without apparent difficulty, the name of the firm still 
eluded him. It was evident, then, that the resistance to 
the name belonged to some complex still undiscovered, 
and I, therefore," says Frink, "urged him to continue 
his associations. 

"After a short pause, during which he felt that he was 
thinking of nothing,' he stated that he had a very vague 
mental picture of some person with a round, red face and 
wearing a blue coat, but he was quite unable to say who 
this person might be. Next he found himself thinking 
of a tall cupboard in a house where he had lived up to his 
eighth year. Then came a memory of himself as a child, 
sitting with his younger brother on the floor before this 
cupboard and playing with a colored picture-book. At 
this point he suddenly realizes the identity of the red face. 
In the picture-book was a representation of General Israel 
Putnam, with a very red face and a very blue coat, mak- 
ing his famous escape from the British by riding on horse- 
back down a flight of stone steps. 

"Then there occurred to him the incident by which the 
forgetting is apparently determined. When he was about 
seven years of age, he and his brother, stimulated by the 
picture of the doughty general's exploit, decided to 'play 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 231 

Israel Putnam/ by carrying each other down the stone 
stairs which led to the cellar of their house. But while 
carrying out this plan it occurred to the older boy, who at 
this moment was acting the part of Putnam's horse, that 
to drop his brother upon the stone steps would add greatly 
to the zest of the proceedings. This happy inspiration 
was no sooner received than put into effect. The small 
brother, suddenly finding himself at the bottom of the 
steps in a very contused condition, set up a wail which 
promptly brought the mother of the children upon the 
scene and placed the elder brother in imminent danger of 
chastisement. But in this emergency the same fertility 
of invention which got him into trouble got him out again. 
For by lying with great power and persuasiveness he con- 
vinced his mother that his brother's fall was purely acci- 
dental and escaped being punished. 

"To this incident the forgetting of the name of Putnam 
may, I think, be attributed. I realize, however, that some 
may doubt whether the memory of this episode, though of 
evident significance at the time it was formed, could have 
any effect whatsoever after a lapse of more than twenty 
years. But in this connection it should be borne in mind 
that the memory must not be regarded as an isolated one, 
but as a part of great complexes which concern the telling 
of lies, the subject's family, and the malicious pleasure de- 
rived from making other people suffer. It is perhaps 
worthy of note, also, that the forgetting occurred just 
before Christmas — that is, in a period which sets the entire 
'family complex' on the qui vive, and not only stimulates 
feelings of affection and good-will, but, because of the 
sometimes painful necessity of furnishing expensive mate- 
rial evidence of regard, occasionally inspires sentiments of 
a less noble and benevolent character. In view of this 
latter fact, one may conceive that the subject's first asso- 
ciation may perhaps not be so irrelevant as it seems." 

It must not be thought that failure to recall is inten- 



232 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tional. The defensive tendency is a subconscious process. 
"I have collected the cases of neglect through forgetting 
which I have observed in myself," says Freud, 1 "and en- 
deavored to explain them. I have found that they could 
invariably be traced to some interference of unknown and 
unadmitted motives — or, as may be said, they were due 
to a counter-will. In a number of these cases I found 
myself in a position similar to that of being in some dis- 
tasteful service; I was under a constraint to which I had 
not entirely resigned myself, so I showed my protest in 
the form of forgetting." 

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is thus seen to have 
a psychological basis, because the wish to do the forbidden 
act makes it easy to forget the prohibiting law. 

It need hardly be said that the defensive tendency 
which underlies Freud's theory does not always gain the 
upper hand. The realm of thoughts and emotions is too 
extensive and complex for that. Amid the play of psychic 
forces, thoughts, and especially emotions, may arise in 
opposition to the suppression of the disagreeable. Moral 
convictions may, according to circumstances, tend to sup- 
press or recall a memory. The desire to boast, for exam- 
ple, in a man of low moral standards, may cause him to 
remember and even to tell of an occurrence which in 
another would be suppressed. 

It is evident from Freud's analysis that forgetting is not 
an accidental occurrence. It always has a cause, and this 
cause involves a motive. We may or may not be able to 
discover the motive, but it is there. Freud has rendered a 
service by the clearness with which he has demonstrated 
the vagueness of the usual explanation. His analysis, 
whether correct in particular instances or not, reveals the 
amazing intricacies of the mental life, and pictures certain 
causes of memory failures as well as of errors in speech and 
action. The explanations usually given, as inattention, 

1 Op. cit., pp. 163-164. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 233 

absent-mindedness, lack of interest, etc., do not explain. 
If the writer were to venture a criticism of Freud's theory, 
however, it would be that it is too limited. Is the motive 
of forgetting "always an unwillingness to recall something 
which may evoke painful feelings" ? The writer doubts it. 
That we tend to forget the unpleasant is undeniable. But 
to assume this to be practically the only motive of forget- 
ting makes the mental processes too restricted, too con- 
sistently uniform. Conflict, suppression, reinforcement, 
and integration are operative, in turn and together, but 
the mental life is not so simple as to have essentially one 
motive. It is well known, for instance, that men are 
prone to become offensively autocratic when suddenly 
promoted from a subordinate position to one that places 
them over those among whom they formerly worked. 
They usually forget the causes of earlier dissatisfaction 
and follow the objectionable practices of their earlier fore- 
men or managers, with, however, this difference — they 
are inclined to be more offensive in their exactions. Of 
course it may be said that they wish to forget their former 
condition of servitude, but there are other factors, such as 
pride in ostentatious display of authority, letting loose all 
of the suppressed desires to dominate — the pleasure that 
man feels in commanding others, the primitive elation in 
merely ordering and seeing the orders executed. 

The writer, in his analysis of his own memory failures in 
thoughts and actions, has found much evidence to support 
Freud's theory. Conflict there certainly is, and repression 
as well. It is probable, indeed, that all forgetting is due 
to conflicts and suppressions of one sort or another. There 
seem, however, to be many causes of these conflicts, some 
of which, perhaps, are more common than the others, but 
any one of which may serve as an underlying motive. The 
instance of the man who locked his key in his trunk, for 
example, which Freud quotes approvingly from Brill, im- 
presses one as fitting the explanation to the theory. 



234 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Whatever was the cause in that case, it is entirely con- 
ceivable that a man may look forward to a social event 
with keen anticipation, but may also have work on hand 
that occupies his mind, and which he is anxious to finish. 
In such a case the conflict is between enjoyable thoughts, 
and the final repression is motived by other causes than 
the disagreeable. To say that the greater zest for the 
one than the other makes one, by comparison, unpleasant, 
is only playing with words. But, notwithstanding criti- 
cism, Freud's contribution is of inestimable value. He has 
gone below the general causes of forgetfulness, and shown 
that there are specific motives which may be discovered, 
and one of these motives, perhaps the most frequent, he 
has isolated and examined. 1 

Memory, then, is a process — a complex nervous process 
— and, like all processes, it can be furthered or hindered. 
The inclusion of conscious experience in the definition of 
memory, as when we say that to be remembered an event 
must be recognized as a part of our past experience, limits 
it by definition to the facts which have been in our personal 
consciousness. It begs the question. All experiential 
modifications of the nervous system which are retained 
and can be reproduced so as to exert an influence upon 
subsequent action are memory. As a matter of fact, con- 
scious memory is only one type of memory. Many experi- 
ences which do not become a part of our conscious mental 
content influence our actions as truly as those of which 
we are aware. Our "feeling" and "intuitions" regarding 
people are illustrations. We are convinced that a man is 
not frank and open, but can give no reason for our belief. 
The only intelligible explanation for this conviction is that 
some look or movement, or something else in his past 
relations with us, made an impression without coming into 
clear consciousness. So-called organic memory, with all 
of its ramifications, is an illustration in a wider field. 

1 An unusually clear statement of Freud's theory, by Doctor Ernest 
Jones, may be found in the British Journal of Psychology, vol. 8, p. 33. 



CURIOSITIES OF MEMORY 235 

Then, again, the actions of the lower animals are sugges- 
tive. Feed a dog an appetizing dish made intensely bitter, 
and he is likely soon after to decline the food served in 
the same way but without the bitter ingredient. Is this 
not memory ? Yet few would say that the dog consciously 
recalled his past experience. 

This view of memory brings it into line with the curious 
instances that we have quoted, and in which the element 
of "recognition" did not enter. Considering memory as a 
process, all of these facts seem clear. A nervous process 
has varying degrees of intensity. Some are too weak to 
become factors in consciousness, though they may exert 
an influence upon the individual; indeed, later, they may 
rise above the level of consciousness. This is seen in those 
occasional moments when one is spoken to while reading 
an interesting book. A person thus absorbed does not 
hear the words, does not even know that he is addressed. 
Yet half an hour later he may suddenly become aware of 
the fact. There are all sorts of memory variants, some of 
which are so spectacular as to suggest occult explanations 
to those seeking supernatural causes. But these unusual 
variants can be matched by facts from every-day life which, 
because of their commonness, are not believed to require 
an explanation. 

Memory regarded as a process is also consistent with 
the strange cases of forgetfulness to which reference has 
been made. A nervous impulse traversing certain path- 
ways is exposed to many interferences. Disturbance of 
nervous processes has been proven in such cases as asso- 
ciative and reproductive inhibition, and in assuming further 
conflicts and repressions we are only enlarging the field of 
interference. Memory and forgetfulness are evidently 
subject to certain principles, some of which have already 
been discovered; and to the extent to which they are 
known memory can be improved. To this phase of the 
subject we accordingly turn. 



CHAPTER VII 
MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 

We have been speaking of certain special and unusual 
cases of recall of past experience. They are significant for 
the psychology of memory, but for the affairs of every-day 
life the practical question is, How may one's own memory 
be made efficient? In answering this question we should 
constantly bear in mind that an efficient memory is selec- 
tive. It does not reproduce past experiences impartially. 
Certain facts which we have observed, heard, or read are 
important for the matter in hand, and other things, how- 
ever much they may bear on other questions, have no 
present significance. If one will notice the arguments and 
statements of others, one cannot fail to observe the devious 
mental wanderings from the point. George Meredith gives 
a good illustration in Evan Harrington. Evan, when horse- 
back riding, discovered Polly Wheedle shivering under a 
bush in the rain: 

"Bellowing against the thunder, Evan bade her throw 
back her garment and stand and give him her arms, that 
he might lift her on the horse behind him. 

"There came a muffled answer, on a big sob, as it seemed. 
And as if heaven paused to hear, the storm was mute. 

"Could he have heard correctly? The words he fancied 
he had heard sobbed were: 

"'Best bonnet . . .' 

"Evan stooped his shoulder, seized the soaked garment, 
and pulled it back, revealing the features of Polly Wheedle. 

"'Oh, Mr. Harrington; oh, ain't I punished!' she whim- 
pered. 

... ., • . • • 

236 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 237 

"'And what have you been doing to be punished? 
What brought you here ? ' said Evan. 

"'Somebody drove me to Fallowfield to see my poor 
sister Susan,' returned Polly, half crying. 

"'Well, did he bring you here and leave you?' 

"'No; he wasn't true to his appointment the moment I 
wanted to go back; and I, to pay him off, I determined I'd 
walk it where he shouldn't overtake me, and on came the 
storm. . . . And my gown spoilt and such a bonnet ! ' 

"'Who was the somebody?' 

"'He's a Mr. Nicholas Frim, sir.' 

"'Mr. Nicholas Frim will be very unhappy, I should 
think.' 

"'Yes, that's one comfort,' said Polly ruefully, drying 
her eyes. . . . 

"'You look very pretty.' . . . 

"'I can see myself a fright, like my Miss Rose did, mak- 
ing a face in the looking-glass when I was undressing her 
last night.' 



"'My Miss Rose — what was I going to tell? Oh ! — my 
Miss Rose. You must know, Mr. Harrington, she's very 
fond of managing; I can see that, though I haven't known 
her long before she gave up short frocks; and she said to 
Mr. Laxley, who's going to marry her some day, "She 
didn't like my lady, the Countess, taking Mr. Harry to 
herself like that." I can't abear to speak his name, but I 
suppose he's not a bit more selfish than the rest of men. 
So Mr. Laxley said — just like the jealousy of men — they 
needn't talk of women ! I'm sure nobody can tell what we 
have to put up with. We mustn't look out of this eye, or 
out of the other, but they're up and — oh, dear me ! there's 
such a to-do as never was known — all for nothing ! ' 

"'My good girl !' said Evan, recalling her to the subject- 
matter with all the patience he could command. 



238 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

"' Where was I?' Polly travelled meditatively back. 'I 
do feel a little cold.'" 

Evidently, recalled thoughts — memory — need direction 
and guidance. What is it that guides ? It is the thought 
about which we are conversing — the central idea around 
which related memories should cluster. The material from 
which this selection is made comes, of course, from past 
experience; but experience is always varied. Every idea 
has been connected with many others. And it is here 
that the purpose of the moment plays its controlling part 
when it is kept rigorously in mind. The failure to keep to 
the point — to progress in one's thinking and talking — is 
commonly caused by carelessly losing the thread of con- 
versation or thought. 

Naturally, much depends upon the intensity of the im- 
pressions, and for deepening the impress, repetition, re- 
cency, vividness, and the number of associations focussing 
upon the idea or event that is to be remembered are im- 
portant. Retention, after the impression has been made, is 
determined by the quality of brain-tissue. Consequently, 
any improvement here is produced indirectly. As in other 
mental matters the effect of hygienic living cannot be over- 
estimated. A vigorous metabolism, by rapid elimination 
of the waste products caused by wear and tear, and by re- 
building the nervous structures, continually rejuvenates 
the tissues and keeps them "fit." The effect of this is 
appreciated when destruction of tissue exceeds construc- 
tion, as when one becomes "worn out" from overwork, 
lack of exercise, or from temporary fatigue. The mind, 
and with it the memory, then refuse to work. The psy- 
chological significance of what has been said in earlier 
chapters about exercise, food, and fatigue is therefore 
obvious. 

In the last analysis, however, we must accept our brain- 
tissue as it is and endeavor to make the most of it. After 
hygienic living, improvement of memory requires conform- 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 239 

ity to rules and principles that grow out of the memory 
process. The purpose of the experiments cited in this 
chapter is to discover some of the principles inherent in 
memory. But before discussing these investigations it 
may be well to mention, briefly, a few of the facts under- 
lying retention and recall. 

The fundamental psychological law of memory is, of 
course, based upon association of ideas, and the investiga- 
tions of retention and recall are attempts to ascertain under 
what conditions associations are firmly established with 
the least expenditure of time and energy. Stated in its 
simplest psychological terms the law of association is, that 
if two ideas have been in the mind simultaneously or in 
immediate succession the recurrence of one of them tends 
to bring the other in its train. I meet a man, for example, 
whom I formerly knew quite well, but whose name I can- 
not remember. I must recall it, however, for a friend will 
join us soon to whom the man must be introduced, and I 
do not wish to admit that I have forgotten his name. My 
mind runs over the period of our former acquaintance. 
We were together in a certain town, we had several friends 
in common, whose names come back as the circumstances 
are recalled. Events long forgotten follow one another in 
more or less serial order; then, quite suddenly, perhaps, as 
I remember a little play in which we both participated, 
the desired name bursts upon me. The writer has been 
trying to describe a bit of personal experience. It was a 
long series of associations and several times the name 
seemed about to come, but still it eluded him. Finally, 
however, the right clew, the event with which the name 
was in closest association, was reached, and then it fol- 
lowed as a matter of course. 

Neither the statement of the "law of association," how- 
ever, nor the description of the process gives the reason 
for the succession of thoughts or for the recall of any given 
idea. For this explanation it is necessary to turn to the 



2 4 o PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

nervous system. The connection between ideas rests, 
ultimately, upon a more fundamental connection between 
neurones, and upon increased permeability of the synapses 
joining these neurones. The law should, therefore, be 
stated in physiological terms, as follows: When two neu- 
rones have been active together or in immediate succes- 
sion, the activity of one tends to excite the other to action. 
The synapse is the point of functional connection between 
neurones, and simultaneous or successive action of the 
two neurones decreases the resistance of their juncture. 
For this reason the excitation of one easily extends to the 
other. The change in the synapse, resulting from the 
passage of a nervous impulse from one neurone to another, 
is the physiological basis of association, as of habit. Asso- 
ciation is much more complex than this so-called law im- 
plies, but it is not our present purpose to examine its more 
intricate manifestations. The important fact to observe 
here is that memory proceeds according to law and order. 
There are, to be sure, cases in which memory seems to 
be independent of association. Ideas, at times, appear to 
come into the mind of their own accord. We are some- 
times obsessed by a word, a tune, or a face. So far as we 
can discover such ideas are uncaused. There is, however, 
in the author's opinion, no reason for assuming that this 
perseverative tendency — the persistence of the activity of 
the cells of the cortex — violates the principle of associa- 
tion. It is probably due to hidden associations, to simi- 
larities or contrasts of which one is not fully conscious, or 
to old associations which have faded to obscurity. The 
fact that perseveration is especially noticeable when one 
is fatigued supports this view. In such a condition the 
older, more permanently established, associations would 
naturally obtrude. Associations are much more numerous 
and controlling than we are inclined to think. Suggest 
almost any topic, such as anarchist, trades-unions, or walk- 
ing delegate, to a friend, and you will find that he has very 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 241 

strong opinions, though he may never have given the 
ideas a moment's conscious reflection. The associations 
that give approval or disapproval have been formed 
wholly unconsciously through the influence of newspaper 
statements or conversations. Perseveration may therefore 
be explained without recourse to free ideas, for which there 
is at present no convincing evidence. 

These apparently detached ideas are sometimes bridges 
over which one passes from memory to imagination. On 
rare occasions they offer new points of view and a great 
discovery may follow. The mental attitude toward the 
questions raised is important here, and knowledge plays an 
inestimable role. 

Knowledge as a factor in memory has received too little 
attention. The more we know about a subject the more 
easily and accurately do we remember what we read con- 
cerning it. The reason, of course, is that we see more 
meaning in what we read and, because it has a richer sig- 
nificance, associations are more numerous and intelligible. 
Knowledge is also necessary for flashes of insight. This is 
the basis for the statement attributed to Thomas Edison, 
that "genius is not inspiration, but perspiration." 

Adults are prone to think that memory is a matter of 
age. Children, they say, remember easily but maturity 
causes forge tfulness. Investigations, 1 however, do not 
support this view. Children seem to excel adults in rote- 

1 A. Binet and V. Henri, V Annie psychologique, vol. i, p. i. B. Bourdon, 
Revue philosophique, vol. 37, p. 148. T. L. Bolton, American Journal of 
Psychology, vol. 4, p. 362. O. Decroly and J. Degand, V Annie psycholo- 
gique, vol. 13, p. 122. E. N. Henderson, Psychological Review, Monograph 
Supplement, no. 23, 1903. J. Jacobs, Mind, vol. 12 (old series), p. 75. Marx 
Lobsien, Die experimentelle Padagogik, vol. 3, p. 151. E. Meumann, Vorle- 
sungen z. Einfiihrung in d. experimentelle Padagogik, vol. 1, pp. 170-203; 
The Psychology of Learning, translated by J. W. Baird, pp. 245 jf. A. 
Netschajeff, Zeitschriftf. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 24, 
p. 321. Adolf Pohlmann, Experimentelle Beilrage z. Lehre vom Geddchtnis, 
Berlin, p. 55 jf. Rudolf Wessely, Neue Jahrbucher f. das Mass. Alterthum 
u. f. Padagogik, vol. 16, pp. 279, 373. W. H. Winch, British Journal of 
Psychology, vol. 1, p. 127; 2, p. 52. 



242 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

learning, because they are more accustomed to this kind 
of memory work. As soon, however, as adults have had 
practice they surpass children. Mature persons are un- 
willing to submit to the drudgery of mechanical learning. 
They resent memorizing conjugations and declensions, or 
lists of words. Children, on the other hand, rather enjoy 
such work and frequently repeat in play what they have 
learned. Practice with them is more regular and persist- 
ent, and it is practice that counts in memory, as in other 
things. 

Memory in children improves with age, though periods 
without improvement have been observed. These excep- 
tions seem to occur when the development of organs and 
functions produces excessive drain upon the vitality. It 
should be mentioned, in this connection, that most of the 
experiments have been made with those of fourteen years 
or younger, and usually the memory tests were given im- 
mediately after the material had been learned. In a few 
instances twenty-four hours or several days intervened. 

An experiment by Wessely 1 throws some light upon the 
relation between permanent memory and age in those 
under seventeen or eighteen. Boys were asked to write 
as much as they could remember of a poem which they 
had committed to memory a year or more before. The 
result showed that, so far as these boys were concerned — ■ 
there were twenty-three or more in each of the six classes 
tested — retention gradually increased from twelve years 
of age to fifteen or sixteen, when it appeared to reach its 
maximum. Wessely also tested pupils from eleven or 
twelve to seventeen or eighteen, using Latin words with 
which they were unfamiliar. The memory test consisted 
in associating these words with their German equivalents. 
Then, twenty-four hours, one week, and one month later 
the German words were given, and the boys were asked 
to write the respective Latin equivalents. The capacity 

1 Op. cit. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 243 

to retain and recall gradually increased from the youngest, 
who gave the poorest results, to those of thirteen or four- 
teen, who were the best. At seventeen or eighteen, again, 
some increase in retention was indicated, 

Pohlmann 1 found that children fourteen years of age 
retain considerably more than one and one-half times as 
much as nine-year-olds. At about fourteen he observed a 
decline, due probably to physiological causes. This was 
followed by a second increase in capacity to retain and re- 
call, which continued to the twentieth year, where his in- 
vestigation ended. Beyond twenty years no systematic 
attempt has been made to follow the relation between per- 
manent memory and age. 

Meumann thinks that the limit of improvement in the 
ability to commit to memory is reached at about twenty- 
five years of age. The few tests that have been made on 
adults, however, indicate increasing ability much later in 
life. Ebbinghaus, for example, tested himself at fifty-two 
years of age, and found that he could learn nonsense- 
syllables quite as readily as he could shortly after thirty. 2 

In a more recent investigation 3 high-school students 
averaging from sixteen to seventeen years of age retained 
poetry better than those younger or older. With prose, 
however, the most efficient memory "appears much later 
in life, and the more abstract and difficult the material 
the later it appears." On the whole, this investigation 
sustains the earlier conclusions, that memory of material 
with meaning improves until the period when the mental 
powers in general begin to decline. 

The reason for the better memory of adults is greater 
ability to concentrate their attention, wider knowledge, 
with its wealth of associations, and the will to remember 
as represented in their attitude toward their work. In- 
terest in what one is doing, with its accompanying zeal to 

1 Op. cit. 2 Grundzuge d. Psychologie, erste Auflage, vol. i, p. 622. 

8 D. O. Lyon, Archives of Psychology, no. 34. 



244 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

achieve results, concentrates the attention on the work 
and tends to eliminate disturbances. There are, of course, 
variations from the rule, both among adults and children. 
The power of concentration, the amount of reflection, and 
the mental type of the reader, all play their role. But it 
is safe to say that in the vast majority of those under 
forty-five or fifty who are unable to remember what they 
hear or read, the fault lies in the absence of endeavor. 

Another preliminary question regarding memory is its 
relation to intelligence. Do brighter children remember 
better? This cannot be answered definitely. Winch 1 
tested boys and girls ranging from eight years of age to a 
little over fourteen. He made two kinds of experiments. 
In the first set twelve consonants were read aloud. The 
children wrote the consonants from memory immediately 
after they were given. Winch found a direct relation be- 
tween memory and intelligence, as indicated by success in 
school studies. It should not be forgotten, however, that 
school methods too commonly put a premium on rote- 
learning. It is, therefore, pertinent to ask whether a good 
memory of the sort investigated by these tests and good 
school marks do not largely overlap. 

Pyle, 2 testing the members of several college classes, 
found so slight a correlation as to be practically equivalent 
to a denial of any mutual relation. Lyon, on the other 
hand, concluded 3 that "the students who rank highest in 
their classes and who may be classed as the most intelligent 
have, as a rule, the best memories." An examination of 
Lyon's tests, however, indicates that the differences are 
not sufficient to warrant a definite statement. Indeed, 
the investigator himself says: "The differences are not 
marked. Upon taking any one form of material, contrary 
results may be obtained." 

Henderson, again, observed no correspondence between 

1 Op. cit. 2 Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 2, p. 319. 

3 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, vol. 9, p, 74. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 245 

class standing and memory in the grammar-school, but he 
did find a correlation among older pupils. This difference 
was quite likely due to the increased ability of those who 
were older to understand the meaning of what they read 
or heard and to the more abundant associations. 

Ebbinghaus 1 measured the ability and memory of gym- 
nasium pupils. Those included in his tests ranged from 
eleven years of age to eighteen. Three kinds of tests were 
used: A memory test of numbers of one syllable in varying 
order, an arithmetical test of simple addition and sub- 
traction, and a third, consisting of prose selections, suited 
to the ages of the different children, with occasional sylla- 
bles and words omitted. The omissions were indicated 
by dashes, and the children were to supply the omissions 
so as to make sense. The results showed that the young- 
sters with the best memory — the numbers were to be writ- 
ten down in their order as soon as heard— were not the 
ones who displayed the most intelligence in the other tests. 
This investigation is more accurate than that of Winch, 
because the memory and intelligence tests do not overlap. 
They do not make demands on the same sort of ability. 

Experiments made by Pohlmann also indicate that 
memory varies with age rather than with intelligence, but 
Pohlmann adds that in the great majority of cases high 
degrees of memory and intelligence seem to be associated. 
The disagreement regarding this question is probably due 
to the fact that there are different kinds of abilities. Good 
memory and unusual intelligence will then be correlated 
when the same or similar mental processes are involved in 
each. This will also explain the fact that different kinds 
of material produce varying results, as was found by Lyon. 

When one looks over the investigations 2 on the compara- 

1 Zeitschrift f. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 13, p. 401. 

2 Mary W. Calkins, Psychological Review, vol. 5, p. 451. Jonas Colin, 
Zeitschrift f. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 15, p. 161. 
Stephen S. Colvin and E. J. Myers, Psychological Review, Monograph Supple- 
ment, no. 44, 1909. Jacopo Finzi, Kraepelin's Arbeiten, vol. 3, p. 289. C. 



V 



246 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tive memory effect of seeing or hearing words, numbers, 
nonsense-syllables and sentences, or, again, of articulating 
internally what is heard or seen, one also finds much disa- 
greement. 

So far as the comparative advantage to memory of hear- 
ing or seeing is concerned, the method of presenting the 
material is not a certain criterion of the manner in which 
it will be imaged in preparation for remembering it. For 
example, a list of words or of dates is given to three men; 
one may think them in auditory images, the second in 
visual, and the third, again, may go through the incipient 
movements of pronouncing them. Most people, however, 
are not predominantly auditory, visual, or motor minded. 
They use one or another kind of imagery, according to the 
convenience or suggestion of the moment, influenced 
chiefly, of course, by the definiteness of their tendency to 
one or the other method of thinking what is seen or heard. 
The problem may be approached from two sides: first, 
What is the comparative efficiency of the manner of pre- 
senting material to be memorized? and, second, How is 
the memory material worked up for reproduction? This 
last involves the further question, How does the manner 
in which it is worked up vary with the auditory, visual, 

J. Hawkins, Psychological Review, vol. 4, p. 289. V. A. C. Henmon, Psycho- 
logical Review, vol. 19, p. 79. F. Kemsies, Zeitschriftf. padagogische Psycho- 
logic, vol. 2, p. 21, and vol. 3, p. 171. E.A. Kirkpatrick, Psychological Review, 
vol. 1, p. 602. W. A. Lay, Experimentelle Didaktik, 1910, pp. 297, 351. M. 
Lobsien, Zeitschrift f. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 27, p. 
34. G. E. Miiller and A. Pilzecker, Zeitschriftf. Psychologie und Physiologie d. 
Sinnesorgane, Erganzungsbd. 1. G. E. Miiller and F. Schumann, Zeitschrift 
f. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane, vol. 6, pp. 81 and 257. E. 
Meumann, Vorlesungen z. Einfiihrung in d. experimentelle Pddagogik, vol. 1, 
pp. 493 jf. The Psychology of Learning, pp. 191 jf. Hugo Miinsterberg and 
J. Bigham, Psychological Review, vol. 1, p. 34. A. Netschajeff, op. cit., vol. 
24, p. 326. Christo Pentschew, Archiv f. d. gesamte Psychologie, vol. 1, 
p. 417. Adolf Pohlmann, op. cit., pp. 179./. J. Segal, Archiv. f. d. gesamte 
Psychologie, vol. 12, p. 124. M. C. Schuyten, Archives de Psychologie, vol. 5, 
p. 245. A. von Sybel, Zeitschrift f. Psychologie und Physiologie d. Sinnes- 
cr*ane, vol. 53, p. 257. L. G. Whitehead, Psychological Revieiv, vol. 3, p. 258. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 247 

and motor minded persons, and what is the influence of 
the method of presentation, or the kind of material em- 
ployed, in determining the answers to these questions? 
Unfortunately, these several problems have not always 
been distinguished in the investigations, and this is prob- 
ably one of the causes of the disagreement. 

Henmon endeavored to ascertain the effect upon reten- 
tion of the several ways of presenting memory material. 
He used concrete nouns, numbers, and nonsense-syllables. 
The tests were made upon six young men and women. 
The auditory method of imparting the material yielded 
the best results in the three sorts of tests, and that too, re- 
gardless, apparently, of the imagery to which the different 
persons were accustomed. Kemsies, Hawkins, and von 
Sybel also found that what is heard is retained and repro- 
duced better than what is seen. 

Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, says that school children 
remember objects seen better than visual words. This 
agrees with the observations of various investigators that 
children use images of particular objects in their thinking. 
Miss Calkins, experimenting with college women, and sub- 
stituting lantern-slides for objects, came to essentially the 
same conclusion. Finzi, Muller and Schumann, Miiller 
and Pilzecker, and Meumann found vizualizers more accu- 
rate than those of the auditory type, but Meumann thought 
them slower. Bigham concludes that visual and auditory 
memory combined greatly reduce the errors. His inves- 
tigation indicates that memory is helped by calling to aid 
as many sorts of associations as possible, instead of limit- 
ing oneself to those that grow out of the individual's 
mental characteristics. An all-around developed imagery 
would then seem to be conducive to a good memory. 
Meumann, however, believes that children should first 
learn to utilize the memory-aids which coincide with their 
mental peculiarities, and that only after they have gained 
what advantage they can from these should they be trained 



248 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

to improve their memory by enlarging their memory-aids 
beyond these "innate" characteristics. One is inclined to 
agree with Meumann when recalling such instances as the 
school-days of Justus von Liebig. The story runs, as once 
related by Liebig 1 himself, that on one occasion when the 
director of the gymnasium visited young Liebig's class 
and heard his wretched recitation, he told him that he was 
the plague of his teacher and the sorrow of his parents. 
When the director asked what so lazy and inattentive a 
boy could do, Liebig replied that he was going to be a 
chemist. At this the director laughed uproariously. Fi- 
nally, Liebig's father was compelled to withdraw him from 
the gymnasium because he could not keep up with his 
class. In his mature years Liebig said that the cause of 
his inability to do the class work was that he had scarcely 
any auditory memory. He could retain little or nothing 
of what he heard; and his school made no provision for 
individual peculiarities. 

The significance of these investigations of mental "types" 
for one's daily life and growth is best understood when one 
remembers that experiences in the outside world are not 
limited to one sense. We can usually hear, or see, or re- 
spond in a motor fashion, as we will. Consequently, indi- 
vidual differences are provided for without any effort on 
our part and commonly, also, without attention from us. 
Most people belong to what may be called the mixed class. 
They are not wholly visual, auditory, or motor. To be 
sure, they prefer to see, or to hear, or to write names which 
they wish to remember, because they retain better what 
comes through one particular sense-organ, or that upon 
which they react in a motor manner. But they are not 
wholly excluded from other sorts of experiences, as was 
Liebig. Sight plays a prominent role in most of our im- 
pressions from the outside world. Perhaps this is the rea- 
son for the predominance of visual imagery in the majority 

1 Das Echo, June 26, 1907, p. 2119. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 249 

of people, not even excluding the "mixed class" to which 
reference has just been made. There are, of course, nu- 
merous individual variations, from the great portrait-paint- 
ers who "see" the absent model sitting before them to those 
who mentally see little or nothing. Meumann regards the 
exclusively visual or auditory person as, in a certain sense, 
defective. A glance at two or three notable cases will be 
interesting in showing the occasional strong predominance 
of the visual and auditory bent of mind. 

Inaudi and Diamandi are two reckoning memory-won- 
ders who were investigated by Binet and Meumann. In- 
audi was the son of a poor shepherd. He did not attend 
school until he was fourteen years of age, but at six his 
brother had taught him to count. His marvellous ability in 
reckoning was observed at seven years of age; when he 
could multiply two five-place numbers mentally. Later in 
life he was able to multiply mentally numbers each of 
which contained as many as 24 digits. His problems had 
to be given orally. So lacking was he in visual images 
that he was confused by the sight of the example upon 
which he was working. He was able to recall 42 numbers 
in a longer series read to him, and in twelve minutes he 
could learn 105 figures by hearing them repeated. In other 
matters his memory was poor. 

Diamandi, on the other hand, employed visual images 
exclusively, according to Binet; visual and motor if we 
accept Meumann's investigation. He was the son of well- 
to-do Greek parents and enjoyed the school privileges of 
his class. His problems had to be written upon the black- 
board. Then, having looked at one for a few minutes, he 
closed his eyes and the visual representation came. Only 
after this reproduction of the numbers did he begin his cal- 
culation. His own statement was that he saw the numbers 
"as if they were photographed." 

Inaudi, as has been said, was an auditory calculator, 
and Diamandi did his reckoning visually. The one " heard" 



250 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the names of the numbers in his calculations and the other 
"saw" them. Meumann, however, says that he found 
that both used "internal speech." Inaudi had observed 
that hoarseness disturbed him when calculating, and a 
registering apparatus revealed movements of his tongue 
and larynx. But, at all events, the vocal movements were 
only aids for the auditory images of the one and for the 
visual images of the other. 

Binet's investigation of these two calculating prodigies 
shows that their memories conform to the same laws as 
those of other people. When Inaudi's memory was as- 
sisted by the meaning of the problem it was ten times as 
efficient, according to Meumann, as his mechanical mem- 
ory, which is essentially the same as Ebbinghaus found in 
the average person. 

The most famous calculating memory-wonder on record 
is a university student by the name of Ruckle, who gave 
an exhibition before the Congress for Experimental Psy- 
chology at Giessen. 1 He was able to learn 204 figures in 
thirteen minutes, so that he could repeat them. Ruckle 
differed from Inaudi and Diamandi in having an excep- 
tional memory for other things than figures and numbers. 
He could learn a series of nonsense-syllables in less than 
half the time usually required. With Ruckle, however, as 
with others, recall was not based on mere memory. He 
made use of various devices which gave the figures mean- 
ing. For example, he separated them into columns, and 
each column served as a unit, and in remembering long 
numbers he divided them into their prime factors. Fur- 
ther than this, his method was to change what he heard 
into visual images. Then, as he put it, he saw the num- 
bers as clearly as though they were written on a black- 
board. There are also striking examples of wonderful 
memories in other fields than mathematics. Mozart, after 
hearing but once the Miserere of Allegri, wrote it out from 

1 G. E. Miiller, Zeitschrift f. Psychologie, Erganzungsbd., vol. 5, p. 186. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 251 

memory, and Beethoven produced, among other compo- 
sitions, the Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D, after he 
became deaf. 

Turning now to the methods by which memory may be 
made more serviceable, one of the first questions suggested 
is that of slow and rapid learning. In certain instances 
this is, of course, settled by the nervous system. Some 
people are born slow. But in the great majority of cases 
the rapidity with which one reads or studies is an acquired 
habit. Consequently, those who wish to make their mem- 
ory more efficient will be interested in the comparative 
value of these two ways of working. 

The opinion generally prevails that those who learn 
quickly forget easily, but experiments 1 do not sustain this 
view. Practically all of the investigators have found that 
rapid workers remember more of what they learn than 
those who are slow. This is true not only of immediate 
memory — memory tested as soon as the learning is com- 
pleted — but also of permanent retention. Quantz, for 
example, observed, in his study of reading, that rapid read- 
ers do superior work. They retain more of the substance 
of what they read or hear than slow readers. Pyle tested 
eight young men and four women with a selection of easy 
prose, and, again, the fast learners had the advantage 
both in the time required for the work and in the amount 

1 Hermann Ebbinghaus, Grundziige der Psychologic, third edition, vol. i, 
pp. 672 jf., 686 Jf. P. Ephrussi, Zeitschriftf. Psychologie, vol. 37, pp. 56, 161. 
E. O. Finkenbinder, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 24, p. 8. E. N. 
Henderson, op. cit. Walther Jacobs, Zeitschriflf. Psychologie, vol. 45, p. 159. 
Ernst Meumann, The Psychology of Learning, pp. 169 jf., 259 jf. G. E. 
Miiller and F. Schumann, op. cit. Naomi Norsworthy, Journal of Educa- 
tional Psychology, vol. 3, p. 214. R. M. Ogden, Archiv f. d. gesamte Psy- 
chologie, vol. 2, p. 93. Christo Pentschew, op. cit. William H. Pyle, 
Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 2, p. 311. J. O. Quantz, Psychologi- 
cal Review, Monograph Supplement, no. 5. P. R. Radossawlewitsch, 
Das Behalten und Vergessen bei Kindem und Erwachsenen, Leipzig, 1907. 
D. Starch, Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 3, p. 209. Lottie Steffens, 
Zeitschriftf. Psychologie, vol. 22, p. 321. E. L. Thorndike, Psychological 
Review, vol. 15, p. 122. Louis G. Whitehead, op. cit. 



252 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

that they retained. Pyle also noticed that the rapid learn- 
ers in the group with which he worked excelled in accuracy. 
Miss Norsworthy tested eighty-three students, and after 
a month had passed the more rapid workers remembered 
more of what they had committed to memory than those 
who had learned the assignment with more effort. Essen- 
tially the same conclusion, at least for intelligible material, 
was reached by Lyon. 1 "Those who learn quickly," he 
says, "remember longest if the material is logical in char- 
acter. Where the material is 'illogical' and is memorized 
by motor associations, so to speak, the converse is true." 

It appears, then, from these and other experiments that, 
in reading or studying selections of connected thought, 
rapidity is economical, provided it does not exceed the 
speed at which the reader can get the meaning clearly. 
Beyond this rate haste would obviously be uneconomical. 
The discovery that the statement "Easy comes easy goes" 
is not true has far-reaching educational significance. 

If a young man plans to enter business or any of the 
professions, for example, it is of supreme importance that 
he acquire the ability to tear the meaning from pages at a 
glance. A business man should be able to understand the 
report of a department manager as his eye runs it over; 
and a lawyer cannot be long in getting the significance of 
a legal document if he would win his case. Further, the 
amount that one must read in law, medicine, science, liter- 
ature, or theology to become proficient is enormous, and 
it is continually increasing. The young man who hopes to 
reach a position of importance must learn to cover ground 
rapidly and to note the landmarks as he passes. 

But there is still another phase of this same question. 
Often one consults books for a definite purpose, to secure 
information about a certain matter. A lawyer, for exam- 
ple, is looking for opinions, decisions, or analogous cases to 
settle a legal point. He must ringer many books but he 

1 Op. cit. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 253 

has not time to read them through. Success in this re- 
quires ability to get the contents of a page at a glance. 
He does not read it, but he must grasp the substance. 
Physicians have many more medical journals than they 
can read through if their practice is extensive. They need 
to see the meaning of the articles as they turn the pages. 

For the lecturer, writer, or general reader who wishes to 
be informed, the situation is essentially the same. Scien- 
tific, historical, or other information is widely scattered 
through books and journals. The man who reads slowly 
is heavily handicapped. Rapid readers cover half a dozen 
books in an evening, getting much as they skim along and 
reading selected portions with more care. Many books 
are not worth reading through. Yet some of these con- 
tain valuable thoughts or facts scattered through their 
pages. A slow reader wastes a day finding this material, 
while rapid workers discover it by turning the leaves and 
reading pages at a glance. The writer often finds college 
seniors of high-class rank unable to skim a book and get 
its import. In some of these cases, at least, it is not slow 
comprehension, but rather lack of training. Like other 
forms of ability, this power to get meaning quickly, then 
to sift the information and to organize it rapidly into knowl- 
edge, improves with practice. 

Despite every effort to remember, however, we still for- 
get. It is therefore desirable to notice the rapidity with 
which forgetting proceeds. Investigations 1 have been 
made with children and adults, and the results are in sub- 
stantial agreement. Ebbinghaus experimented upon him- 
self with nonsense-syllables, and found that he forgot very 

1 C. H. Bean, Archives of Psychology, no. 21, 1912. Hermann Ebbing- 
haus, Memory, translated by H. A. Ruger, pp. 76 jf. E. O. Finkenbinder, 
op. cit. E. N. Henderson, op. cit. N. Magneff, Die Bedingungen des 
dauernden Behaltens, Zurich, 1905. E. Meumann, The Psychology of Learn- 
ing, pp. 2,2,0 jf. G. E. Miiller and F. Schumann, op. cit. Christo Pentschew, 
op. cit. P. R. Radossawlewitsch, op. cit. M. K. Smith, American Journal 
of Psychology, vol. 18, p. 504. Edward L. Thorndike, op. cit. 



254 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

rapidly the first hour, proportionately less for the next 
seven hours, and still more slowly through the balance of 
the first twenty-four hours. "After a whole month fully 
one-fifth of the first work persisted in effect." Toward 
the latter part of the month the loss seemed so slight that 
Ebbinghaus was led "to predict that a complete vanishing 
of the effect of the first memorization of these series" [of 
nonsense-syllables] "would, if they had been left to them- 
selves, have occurred only after an indefinitely long period 
of time." There is no essential difference between the 
findings of Ebbinghaus and later investigations. The chief 
disagreement is concerned with the rapidity of forgetting, 
immediately and soon after committing a selection to 
memory. Ebbinghaus' curve of forgetting appears to fall 
too rapidly at the outset. 

Most of the tests of forgetting have been made on chil- 
dren or adults who learned either nonsense-syllables or 
selections with meaning just well enough to repeat them 
once without error. In the course of the investigations, 
however, the ability to recall was found to depend, among 
other things, upon the number of repetitions, upon the dis- 
tribution of periods of work, and upon the number and 
nature of the associations formed. We accordingly turn 
to these memory-aids. 

Repetition fixes memory. Experience shows this. If 
we wish to remember a name we repeat it. Investigation 1 
of the effect of a number of repetitions have not only justi- 
fied this conclusion from experience, but they have also 
contributed several other significant facts. 

First of all, during the repetitions the mind should be 

1 A. Binet et V. Henri, op. cit. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory, pp. 52 ff.; 
Grundziige der Psychologie, third edition, vol. 1, pp. 652 ff. P. Ephrussi, 
op. cit. E. A. Kirkpatrick and Abbie F. Munn, Archives of Psychology, 
no. 12, p. 36. Otto Lipmann, Zeitschrift f. Psychologie, vol. 35, p. 195. 
Max Offner, Das Geddchtnis, Berlin, 1909, pp. 47 ff. Adolf Pohlmann, op. 
cit., pp. 65 ff. Fritz Reuther, Wundt's Psychologische Studien, vol. 1, p. 4. 
W. G. Smith, Psychological Review, vol. 3, p. 21. F. Weber, Zeitschrift f. 
experimented Padagogik, vol. 8, p. 1. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 255 

actively attentive. It has been found that a combination 
of reading and repeating gives the best results for memory. 
Repeating aloud requires more effort and concentrates the 
attention better than silent reading. The latter is more 
likely to be passive. Experiments have shown, also, that 
memory is more than 50 per cent better if the learner is 
informed that the effect of the repetition will be tested 
than when he assumes that there will be no test. 

Then, again, all repetitions are not of equal value in 
fixing impressions and ideas. To be sure, Ebbinghaus 
found that fewer repetitions were required to relearn a 
series of nonsense-syllables after twenty-four hours when 
the original number of repetitions was greater. And this 
saving was proportional, in a general way, to the added 
repetitions during the first learning, provided they did not 
exceed a certain number, not very accurately defined. 
More careful measurement of the relative efficiency of suc- 
cessive repetitions, however, has proved that the earlier 
repetitions have the greatest fixing power. This seems to 
be specially true in immediate memory — memory tested as 
soon as the learning is completed. Again, when the repe- 
titions greatly exceed the number necessary for the first 
correct reproduction their efficiency gradually lessens until 
the gain becomes hardly measurable. Finally, it was ob- 
served that the value of repetitions varied with their dis- 
tribution. This is of special importance not merely for 
students but also for those in the larger outside world of 
business and professional life. One or two questions will 
clear the ground. 

Is it better to commit a selection of prose or poetry to 
memory at a single sitting, or is it advantageous to dis- 
tribute our efforts over several days? Which plan brings 
the desired result with the least expenditure of energy? 
Quite a number of investigations 1 have been made and 

1 J. Larguire des Bancels, V Annie psychologique, vol. 8, p. 185. C. H. 
Bean, op. cit. M. Browning, D. E. Brown, and M. F. Washburn, American 



256 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

there is general agreement that a distribution of periods of 
study gives the best results. 

Ebbinghaus found, in committing nonsense-syllables to 
memory, that thirty-eight repetitions distributed over 
three days produced the same results as sixty-eight repeti- 
tions at a single sitting. Starch experimented with forty- 
two students. They were divided into four groups, one 
of which worked ten minutes at a time twice a day for six 
days; the second group twenty minutes at a time once a 
day for six days; the third worked forty minutes every 
other day for six days; the fourth did the entire task at 
one sitting of two hours. The results showed a great ad- 
vantage for the shorter, more widely distributed periods. 
The two-hour period of work at one sitting was a bad 
fourth. The advantageous periods of work in this experi- 
ment seem short, but the occupation consisted in associ- 
ating numbers with letters, a task which would quickly 
cause fatigue. 

Jost carried these experiments much further than any of 
the other investigators and proved that neither fatigue 
nor inattention explains the advantage of this distribution 
of time. Having eliminated these two factors, he under- 
took to determine the best arrangement of periods of work, 
and he found that twenty-four repetitions, distributed over 
twelve days with two repetitions a day, gave better results 
than less distributed periods. He inclines to an even more 
extended distribution. If we accept Jost's view, that the 

Journal of Psychology, vol. 24, p. 580. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory, 
p. 89; Grundziige der Psychologie, third edition, vol. 1, pp. 657 Jf. John 
Bigham, Psychological Review, vol. 1, p. 453. Alfred Binet, L'Annee psy- 
chologique, vol. 10, p. 116. W. F. Dearborn, Journal of Educational Psy- 
chology, vol. 1, p. 273. Adolf Jost, Zeitschrift f. Psychologie, vol. 14, p. 436. 
E. A. Kirkpatrick and Abbie F. Munn, op. cit. J. H. Leuba and Winnefred 
Hyde, Psychological Review, vol. 12, p. 351. O. Lipmann, op. cit. E. Meu- 
mann, Psychology of Learning, pp. 265^*. G. E. Miiller and A. Pilzecker, op. 
cit. Max Offner, op. cit. Nellie L. Perkins, British Journal of Psychology, 
vol. 7, p. 253. Adolf Pohlmann, op. cit., pp. 82 jf. Fritz Reuther, op. cit. 
D. Starch, op. cit. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 257 

advantage of distributed practice and study 1 lies in the 
greater effectiveness of old associates, Miss Perkins' re- 
sults 2 "indicate that this process of consolidation continues 
for at least forty-eight hours, and still longer if four or more 
readings are made on each day" [of practice]. Putting 
these investigations into general terms, the experiments 
show conclusively that an extensive distribution of study 
periods for a given piece of work is advantageous both for 
rapidity of learning and for permanent retention. The 
period favorable for one sitting and the length of inter- 
vening time will depend, among other things, upon the na- 
ture of the material and the difficulty of the task, with its 
accompanying fatigue. The economy of distributed study, 
instead of finishing what one is engaged upon and then 
dropping it, may then be considered established. 

Jost next sought to determine why it is more advanta- 
geous to spread study or practice over several days instead 
of finishing the work at one sitting. He came to the con- 
clusion that older associations — those which were estab- 
lished earlier — are more easily renewed than the more re- 
cent ones. This explanation, however, still leaves the 
question Why? unanswered. Some find the explanation 
in the effect of activity upon the nutrition of the organ 
exercised, 3 and in the dropping out of interfering associa- 
tions. This would be a satisfactory explanation were con- 
siderable practice always involved. But the same advan- 
tage of distributed study is observed when the selection is 
read but once each time. A "setting" or "fixing" of as- 
sociations, on the other hand, apparently satisfies condi- 
tions. Those that are older have had more time in which 
to become "fixed." Since it is difficult to understand in 
what this "fixing" consists, unless it be the result of cere- 

1 Jost experimented only upon learning and relearning, i. e., memory. 

2 Op. cit. 

3 Physiological Psychology, by G. T. Ladd and R. S. Woodworth, 
p. 581. 



258 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

bral nervous activity, we seem at present compelled to 
take this view. 

This explanation of the "setting" of associations during 
periods of rest is also indicated by experiments in re- 
learning skilful acts after a long interval without practice. 
The writer at one time acquired considerable proficiency 
in tossing two balls with one hand, one ball being caught 
and thrown while the other was in the air. More than six 
years later he again tested himself in this feat. In eleven 
days he greatly exceeded the skill which he had acquired 
six years before after forty-two days of arduous practice. 
The following curves show the progress during the original 
learning process, and during the test in relearning the same 
feat six years or more later. The curve of relearning is 
on the left. The rate of progress is shown at the left of 
the perpendiculars, and the days required in each case are 
indicated under the base line. 1 The practice in which the 
skill was first gained was finished six years before this 
memory test was made. After the conclusion of the first 
investigation there were five monthly tests of the effect of 
intermission of practice, and one memory test two years 
later. With these exceptions there had been no practice 
during the six years. 

The writer has also determined the effect of intermission 
of practice on the typewriter. 2 In this instance, the mem- 
ory test was made more than two years after the close of 
the first experiments by which a certain degree of skill was 
attained. During the intervening two years he had not 
used any style of typewriter. The original investigation 
covered a period of fifty days, while in the memory test, 
two years later, only eleven days were required to reach 
the degree of proficiency with which the original investi- 
gation closed. 

1 This curve is reproduced from the Psychological Bulletin, vol. 7, 
p. 17. 

2 Psychological Bulletin, vol. 3, p. 185. 




5 10 15 20 25 30 35 -40 45 

NEUROMUSCULAR MEMORY 



260 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The remarkably short time needed in both of these in- 
vestigations to regain the former skill, after the long inter- 
val without practice, shows the persistence of neuro- 
muscular memory. A still more significant fact, however, 
is disclosed by the curves for ball-tossing given above. It 
will be observed that in eleven days, after six years of 
cessation of practice, the experimenter acquired much 
greater skill than that with which he closed his experi- 
ments of forty-two days, six years earlier. 

It is clear that the effects of activity upon the nutrition 
of the organ exercised and the dropping out of interfering 
associations do not account for the persistence and rapid 
improvement of skill after such long periods of inactivity. 
The astonishingly rapid gain in skill in ball-tossing beyond 
that originally acquired indicates not only a "fixing" of 
nervous and muscular associations, but also, during the 
long interval, some sort of integrative nervous activity by 
which the skill was further improved. At present there is 
no other tenable explanation. Batson, in his investiga- 
tion, 1 also observed improvement in skill during intervals 
of no practice. "After a long rest period," he says, "the 
subject is found to be in a condition to improve very rapidly. 
In some cases the results show that they have actually 
gained power during the rest period." 

The matter of "rest periods" has wide application. 
Jost's investigations, as well as the others to which refer- 
ence has just been made, emphasize the value of repeti- 
tions, but always with an interval between them. A book, 
a legal opinion, an investigation in medicine or in science, 
which one wishes to remember, should be read again, but 
not at once. It is always important, however, that the 
meaning be as clear as possible in the first reading, because 
that gives the memory a freer field; and, when it is a matter 
of elaboration rather than of memory alone, the recon- 
struction of the thoughts, as a result of cerebral proc- 

1 Op. tit. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 261 

esses, has a better start. Error may be corrected, but 
mere confusion is rarely if ever clarified without further 
study. 

These investigations also make conscious and thought- 
ful a method which has been followed instinctively, or, at 
any rate, unconsciously. Children who "go over" the les- 
son just before class are acting upon this principle of dis- 
tributed study. To older persons, a book, or chapter, 
may seem quite unintelligible when read for the first time. 
Upon second reading, however, after the lapse of a day 
or two, it is often amazing how clear the misty statements 
become. One now sees meaning in what before was un- 
intelligible. Had the reader stopped with the first read- 
ing nothing would have been remembered, but now the 
confusion takes an orderly form. Something is indicated, 
however, in addition to reinforcement of memory impres- 
sions. Deepening impressions by repetition might account 
for the greater clearness, but this is hardly sufficient to 
explain the increased significance that a second reading 
produces after an interval of a day or so. And an inter- 
vening day gives better results than an immediate re- 
reading. It seems to be another illustration of the inte- 
grative nervous activity to which reference has just been 
made. 

As a practical deduction from these investigations and 
observations, it may be said that students would save 
time and effort by keeping at least one day ahead in their 
studies; and the last reading, like the earlier ones, should 
be as rapid as following the thought permits. "Cram- 
ming" is clearly unpsychological; for accumulated repeti- 
tions within a short time have only a temporary effect. 
That which is learned in this way vanishes quickly. 

One reason for the meagre results of cramming is that 
association of ideas is reduced to their sequence in the text. 
The wider meanings do not have a chance to assert them- 
selves. The bearing of associations upon memory may, 



262 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

perhaps, be best illustrated by comparing those at the two 
extremes of usefulness. 

Associations may be strictly artificial and mechanical 
or they may be significant and interpretative. Memory 
systems offered for sale are of the first sort. One of these 
systems which has been long in the market teaches the 
purchaser to remember numbers by translating them into 
letters of words. Zero, for example, is represented by s, z> 
or c soft; i by /, th, or d. "All the other letters" [of the 
word] "are simply to fill up. Double letters in a word 
count only as one." This or dizzy would then stand for the 
number 10, and catch or gush for 76. "Now," continues 
the writer of the book from which we are quoting, "sup- 
pose you wish to memorize the fact that $1,000,000 in gold 
weighs 3,685 pounds. You go about it in this way: 

"How much does $1,000,000 in gold weigh? 

"Weigh — scales. 

"Scales — statue of justice. 

"Statue of justice, image of law. 

' ' The process is simplicity itself ' ' [mirabile dictu / ] . " The 
thing you wish to recall, and that you fear to forget, is the 
weight. Consequently, you cement your chain of associa- 
tion to the idea which is most prominent in your mental 
question. What do you weigh with? Scales. 

"What does the mental picture of scales suggest? The 
statue of justice, blindfolded and weighing out award and 
punishment to man. Finally, what is this statue of jus- 
tice but the image of law ? and the words image of law trans- 
lated back from the significant letters m, g soft, /, and /, 
give you 3-6-8-5, the number of pounds in $1,000,000 
in gold." 

Another of these mechanical memory systems is based 
upon visualization. "We must not impress upon the 
memory mere words, but turn our attention and train our 
minds to see the objects or ideas they represent, associated 
or combined in mental pictures," the writer of this system 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 263 

says. A list of a hundred "code" or "index" words is 
given, of which hat and hen are the first two. "See the 
hat and the hen in the picture together," we are told. 
"Do not see a hen of ordinary size, but use one strengthen- 
ing principle of imagination, that of exaggeration. See a 
large hen four feet high. Put the black silk hat on the hen's 
head; now put motion into the picture, and see the hen 
strut about. . . . Knowing our index words will enable 
us to remember a number of varied items, such as errands." 
Suppose, now, that we wish to buy stamps. " We may form 
a picture of a large hat decorated with postage-stamps, 
or any clear combination of stamps and hat. The more 
conspicuous and striking the picture, the easier will it be 
to recall it." But there are also other associations in this 
system. "Trustees is similar in sound to rusty, so if we 
make trustees suggest rusty, and visualize a rusty can, the 
gap is bridged. . . . ." Letters are to stand for figures, but 
it all goes back to visualization of the objects represented 
by the "code" words. "A combination picture of a mop 
and a chair will represent 3964. The danger of transposing 
figures, by recalling the picture as chair — mop 6439, instead 
of 3964, can be avoided by having the first object much 
larger than the second. In the case of 3964, picture the 
mop larger than the chair." 

Of course there is no fault to find with any of this except 
with the whole of it. Its associative machinery is so 
crude that the rattle is distressing. Yet these systems are 
fairly representative of those on sale. That they con- 
tinue and multiply indicates buyers. Consequently, some 
of the purchasers must feel that they receive value for the 
price. The explanation seems to be that if a man is 
sufficiently interested in improving his memory to pay an 
exorbitant price for a "system" he will continually keep 
the thought of remembering in mind. He will also ob- 
serve details and repeat what he wishes to remember as 
he never did before the expenditure made it worth while. 



264 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The basis of a good memory is to discover valid relations, 
such as those of time, place, similarity and dissimilarity, 
cause and effect. A student may learn a mathematical 
or chemical formula as he would learn a series of nonsense- 
syllables, but he will forget it after twenty-four hours. If, 
however, he learns to work out the formula he will remem- 
ber it. In the same way a lawyer may study court de- 
cisions as isolated facts, without reference to their causes, 
and he will not remember them long beyond the trial 
of his case. But if he study the earlier decisions out 
of which they grew, he will become an authority in legal 
matters. 

The value of associations with meaning is emphasized 
by the results of the grotesque memory systems from which 
we have quoted. They show that if one works hard 
enough on any system of association, however mechanical 
and meaningless it may be, one will obtain observable 
results. Naturally, after paying twenty-five dollars for 
lessons the purchaser works at the system so as to get the 
value of his money. If he would be half as diligent with 
real relations between ideas as he is with these artificial 
ones, his memory would be marvellous. It should not be 
forgotten, however, that memory is not just one mental, 
or rather physiological, process which can be put through 
a course of training and afterward be good for all kinds of 
material. We have memories, not a memory. In other 
words, men and women have a good memory for certain 
kinds of facts, and a poor memory for others. A woman, 
for example, may be able to recall the dishes served at a 
score of dinners to which she was invited, yet be unable 
to remember any historical facts that she has read. We 
may, however, improve our ability to recall in certain 
lines by practice in those lines, but the common belief that 
the memory, in general, may be trained is erroneous. 

The secret of memory is to think about what one wishes 
to remember — to think it, as we have said, in connection 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 265 

with other facts with which it has a spatial, temporal, 
causal, or other relation that gives it meaning and inter- 
prets it. Thinking presupposes a question or problem 
which one wishes to understand. Organization of knowl- 
edge is essential, and this organization proceeds with refer- 
ence to the successive phases of the problem upon which 
one is working. Facts are classified under general prin- 
ciples which in turn explain or lead to the interpretation 
of the question under consideration. Information that is 
referred to principles is easily remembered. Darwin has 
told us how organization and classification of knowledge 
attained results with himself. His retrospect also shows 
the value of rethinking what has been read that memories 
not at first available may have a chance to assert them- 
selves. "I have no quickness of apprehension or wit 
which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance in 
Huxley," he says in his Autobiography. "I am, therefore, 
a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally 
excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable 
reflection that I perceive the weak points." 

No investigations bearing directly upon the value of 
relations with meaning, such as cause and effect, have 
been made, but we know that memory depends upon asso- 
ciation, and that the more "sense" or "meaning" one 
sees in what one is reading the longer it will be retained. 
'Experiments 1 have shown that prose and poetry can be 
learned with vastly greater ease than an equal number of 
disconnected words, and that it will be remembered much 
longer. This, of course, puts the matter very inadequately. 

1 J. H. Bair, Psychological Review Monograph Supplement, no. 19, 1902. 
J. A. Bergstrom, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 5, p. 356; vol. 6, p. 433. 
A. Binet and V. Henri, op. cit. W. F. Book, University of Montana Bulle- 
tin, no. 53. Mary W. Calkins, Psychological Review Monograph Supple- 
ment, no. 2, 1896. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory; Grundzuge der Psychol- 
ogic, third edition, vol. 1, p. 685 ff. Hugo Miinsterberg, Beitrdge zur experi- 
mented Psychologie, vol. 4, p. 69. G. E. Miiller and A. Pilzecker, op. cit. 
W. L. Smith, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 7, p. 436. 



266 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

An entire chapter, or more, can be read in a short time, and 
the substance repeated on the following day. To commit 
this to memory verbatim would require many hours. 

One of the noticeable causes of memory obstruction is 
interfering associations. It is in the early stages of learn- 
ing, however, that this interference is especially likely to 
produce confusion. This has been observed both in acts 
of muscular skill and in mental activities. When, on the 
other hand, proficiency in one thing has been attained, a 
new kind of work with opposing responses may be under- 
taken without observable interference. For example, one 
may learn to write with equal skill on two typewriters with 
different keyboards provided one becomes an expert with 
the first before starting to use the second. The significance 
of this in the acquisition of knowledge is obvious. A solid 
foundation must underlie the superstructure. Declen- 
sions, conjugations, and idiomatic constructions of one for- 
eign language should be made automatic before beginning 
a second. In science and history one point of view should 
be thoroughly mastered before passing to other opinions 
and criticisms. This, of course, makes the selection of the 
first book to be read or studied a matter of supreme im- 
portance, because it is to be the base of operations from 
which the reader goes out to survey the terrain, and decide 
upon his strategic movements. Until he has acquired 
sufficient knowledge and skill to live upon the country he 
must constantly return to his base for supplies. Conse- 
quently, it is important that he be substantially provi- 
sioned with the fundamental necessities as an aid to mem- 
ory. 

Economy in memory has many points of approach, so 
we turn now to the manner of committing prose or poetry 
to memory. Is it better to read the entire selection 
through until it is learned, or is the work done more quickly 
by committing limited portions, and then combining them ? 
This is an important question for public speakers. The 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 267 

investigations 1 are quite decisive. In learning connected 
discourse of any sort, or lists of words, the economical 
method is to read the whole through from beginning to 
end until everything is memorized. The "whole" method 
requires fewer repetitions and less time than the "part" 
method. But more important than the saving of time and 
labor is the better retention. What is learned by the 
"whole" method is remembered longer and reproduced 
more accurately. This is true of both adults and children. 

Miss Steffens found that individuals differ widely as to 
the manner of distributing their repetitions over the selec- 
tion, but all divide it into sections with undue attention 
to the first part. Children especially waste time upon the 
first few fines by continued repetitions, and neglect the 
latter part. The chief reason for this practice of both 
adults and children is probably that learning in sections 
produces immediately noticeable progress while the 
"whole" method requires more time for the result to be 
observable. In addition, the human disinclination to 
move on — to attempt the new and strange — causes the 
learner to keep repeating the first part, and when he has 
started ahead to return again to the first few fines. 

Meumann's experiments show that the time and repeti- 
tions required for memorizing a selection increase with the 
number of parts into which it is divided. This is true of 
nonsense-syllables and material with meaning. But it is 
more noticeable in the latter case. And the advantage of 
the "whole" method is greater as the amount of the mate- 
rial to be learned increases. Of course, since recall is 
the object, the final question is, Which method produces 
the firmest retention and the most accurate reproduc- 

1 J. Larguire des Bancels, op. cit. Ernst Ebert and E. Meumann, Archiv. 
f. d. gesamte Psychologie, vol. 4, p. 1. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory; 
Grundziige d. Psychologie, third edition, vol. i,pp. 669 jjf. P. Ephrussi, op. 
cit. E. Meumann, Psychology of Learning, pp. 233 ff. Giinter Neumann, 
Die experimentelle Padagogik, vol. 4, pp. 63, 155. Max Offner, op. cit., 
p. 61 Jf. Christo Pentschew, op. cit. Lottie Steffens, op. cit. 



268 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tion? And in these respects the "whole" method again 
excels. 

One of the objections to learning prose or poetry by 
sections is that interfering associations are established. 
Breaks between the sections must be connected. The end 
of a section is associated with its beginning instead of with 
the first few words of the following lines. These associa- 
tions impede continuous reproduction, and time and effort 
must be expended in suppressing them. In the "whole" 
method the learning is equally distributed and the entire 
selection is learned uniformly. By this method, also, asso- 
ciations are formed between the parts, however far they 
may be separated. Not merely the contiguous portions, 
but also those remote from one another are influenced by 
associative bonds, so that it is not merely one word or line 
that recalls the next, but rather the unity of all that pre- 
cedes and follows; for associations work in both directions, 
backward and forward. Opinions expressed on one topic 
by several persons, for example, tend to be recalled because 
of their numerous connections, but conversations with 
different persons on varying subjects do not recall one 
another, even though one immediately follows the other. 

We have been considering economical memory methods, 
but there is another closely related question, and that is, 
Does the difficulty of r amorizing increase proportion- 
ately with added quantities of material? Ebbinghaus 1 
concluded from his experiments with nonsense-syllables 
that the number of repetitions necessary for memorizing 
increases with enormous rapidity as the number of syl- 
lables increases. Later investigations, 2 however, have 
shown that this is not altogether correct. The larger the 
quantity to be learned the relatively fewer repetitions are 

1 Memory, pp. 46 f. 

2 C. Knors, Archiv.f. d. gesamte Psychologie, vol. 17, p. 297. E. Meumann, 
Psychology of Learning, pp. 275 jf. F. Weber, Leitschrift f. experimentelle 
Pddagogik, vol. 8, p. 1. 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 269 

needed to memorize it. In other words, as one of the 
investigators puts it: "Our ability to memorize increases 
with the demands made upon it." One explanation of this 
fitting of memory to its task is probably the general ten- 
dency to adjustment. Man, as we have seen, fits his 
efforts to the demands — to the obstacles, to the resistance. 
He does not do it consciously. It is a sort of organic 
adaptation. Without the pressure of resistance, without 
something to overcome, relaxation sets in. If one's abilities 
are to be tested it must be through a bigger job, one that 
calls for the best that can be given. Then, if the man has 
adequate reserve power he uses it because the result is 
worth the effort, and it can be gained in no other way. 
And in memory, as in other matters, men reveal their 
power only in response to pressure from without. 

In committing to memory a short selection one does not 
feel that much effort is required. With a larger amount, 
on the other hand, the desire to save time leads to imme- 
diate and persistent concentration of attention. The 
period of "warming up" — overcoming the initial disin- 
clination — is shortened or eliminated, and the associations 
are strengthened. In this way the work is accomplished 
in a proportionately shorter time. 

A survey of memory from the vantage-ground of its 
strength and weakness brings into view certain facts and 
principles. First of all, adults can no longer accuse their 
age for their memory failures. The mature can remember 
better than children if they have more knowledge — and 
use it. Unwillingness to recall related knowledge and to 
make the application cause many lapses of memory. We 
should, however, not try to remember everything. Not 
a few memory troubles begin here. Individuals make 
little or no distinction between memory values. Conse- 
quently, there is no mental emphasis, no outstanding facts 
and principles to which special attention is given and around 
which related matter is grouped. 



/ 



270 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

We have said that much of the information which we 
expect to use can be readily found in books of reference." 
Dates, figures, statistics, and many details are matters of 
this sort. Engagements are of only temporary moment, 
and should be written down. The memory should not 
be needlessly encumbered. Historical information should 
be grouped by landmarks, for which comparatively few 
dates are needed. In science, conclusions and principles 
should be remembered. They are few, and facts are many. 
So their retention is not difficult; and besides, principles 
will usually carry with them essential details. 

After material has been selected as worthy of a place 
in memory, the next move is to understand it. If it is 
historical, scientific, or literary interpretation, its com- 
prehension will require special attention, and thinking 
guarantees retention. But understanding has a wider 
reach than is usually attributed to it. There must be 
reasons for the conclusions and interpretations, and these 
reasons involve relations with other facts — relations of 
cause and effect, of succession, contiguity, or similarity 
and contrast. These relations are interpreting connec- 
tions with other ideas by which the thought that we wish 
to remember acquires meaning, and through this wider 
significance it is later recalled. Finding meaning is the 
basis of thinking, and thinking is fundamental to memory. 
Interfering associations are likely to occur and obstruct 
recall unless the thinking is accurate and clear. 

Repetition, of course, should not be overlooked. Any- 
thing that is worth remembering deserves the effort that 
will fix it. But the repetitions should not occur at once. 
Intervals of a day or more should separate them, and then 
there should be no dallying. Surprise is often expressed 
at the ability of some men to remember humorous stories. 
The explanation, however, is that these people are in- 
veterate story-tellers. Indeed, their stories have another 
humorous aspect, quite apart from their content, of which 



MEMORY AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 271 

the envied narrators are not conscious. The repeating 
habit is so fixed that they tell the stories several times to 
the same persons. Therein lies their success — and failure. 
Repetition fixes the stories, but no effort is made to re- 
member those to whom they have already been related. 

Memory, then, is not the capricious, freakish process that 
it is sometimes thought to be. It is subject to law and 
order. Some of its laws have been determined by the in- 
vestigations to which we have referred. Associations — not 
artificial ones but those with meaning in them — we have 
found to be the compelling force through which ideas are 
recalled. The problem of memory therefore resolves it- 
self into getting the right associations and "fixing" them. 
It is with the "fixing" process that the investigations con- 
tained in this chapter deal. In selections to be committed 
to memory the associations are given in the text. Here, 
the "whole method," with as rapid reading as clear com- 
prehension permits, should be the plan. When, however, 
one reads, and tries to get the import, associations reach 
out further and include all related thoughts. In this case, 
getting the full meaning with all its implications and or- 
ganizing the knowledge thus obtained are the foundation 
for remembering. But here, also, repetition should not 
be neglected, and in repeating new meaning will be discov- 
ered. 

Although the impressionability and retentiveness of 
nerve-cells probably cannot be improved directly, indi- 
rectly they may be influenced by severe attention to what 
has been selected for retention. Training counts for much, 
and also knowledge of one's personal memory deficiency, 
with care for the methods of improvement. Darwin says 
of himself: "My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices 
to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have ob- 
served or read something opposed to the conclusion which 
I am drawing, or, on the other hand, in favor of it; and 
after a time I can generally recollect where to search for 



272 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory that 
I have never been able to remember for more than a few 
days a single date or a line of poetry." 1 Montaigne also 
speaks of his poor memory, but neither with him nor with 
Darwin does the defect seem to have been a serious handi- 
cap in what they set themselves to accomplish. They or- 
ganized their minds and work to retain the information 
they needed. And the more humble man with smaller 
tasks may do as well, if he will only apply the principles 
upon which a serviceable memory is built — and think. 

1 Autobiography. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TESTIMONY AND 
RUMOR 

The accuracy of reports of what has been seen or heard 
is a matter of wide interest. In courts of justice it decides 
the liberty or life of the defendant, and in the social world 
the narration of conversations or events often disrupts a 
community and destroys the happiness of all concerned. 
Assuming an earnest desire to relate the facts as they oc- 
curred, what are the chances for a truthful narration, and 
does the feeling of accuracy assure a reasonably correct 
reproduction? These questions are fundamental to court 
testimony and to social intercourse; and in the answers 
are revealed some interesting peculiarities of human psy- 
chology. Perhaps these questions may be best approached 
by a concrete case. 

A few years ago the writer's attention was directed to 
a rather remarkable criminal trial. In 187 1 Alexander 
Jester started east from Kansas in a light spring wagon 
with canvas top, drawn by two small pony horses. While 
fording a stream near Emporia, as the horses were drinking, 
he fell into conversation with Gilbert Gates, a young man 
who was returning from homes teading land in Kansas. 
Young Gates was travelling in what was then known as a 
prairie-schooner drawn by a pair of heavy horses. Jester 
had three young deer in his wagon, and Gates a buffalo 
calf. They decided to travel together and give exhibitions 
with their animals to meet expenses. When they reached 
Paris, Missouri, Gates had disappeared. Jester's explana- 
tion, at the preliminary hearing, was that he became 
homesick and sold his outfit to him that he might hasten 

273 



274 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

home by rail. Jester was seen leaving Paris driving Gates' 
heavy team with his own lighter team tied behind. Later 
he sold the heavy horses and various other articles known 
to have belonged to Gates, but which he claimed were 
purchased. It is not the purpose of the writer to decide 
the merits of the case, but rather to call attention to cer- 
tain exceedingly interesting psychological features. 

Jester was soon arrested but escaped, and was not 
brought to trial until 1901. Thirty years had therefore 
passed since the events concerning which witnesses were 
called upon to testify. Besides, there was a blinding 
snow-storm at the time when the crime was supposed to 
have been committed; and, of course, this would have in- 
terfered with accurate observation. Further, when the 
witnesses "saw" the things which they related they were 
not aware that a crime had been committed. Two pre- 
'liminary questions thus suggest themselves: First, would 
any one note, as carefully as the subsequent testimony in- 
dicated, the peculiarities of a chance traveller on the road, 
especially in a blinding snow-storm, and at a time when 
no reason existed, so far as known, for unusual observation ? 
Second, would observers, under these circumstances, be 
likely to remember, after the lapse of thirty years, the 
minute details of what they had seen? The incidents 
were of the unimportant, uninteresting sort that were 
frequently experienced at that time. Even the prairie- 
schooner could hardly have been exceptional enough to 
attract special attention, since, as will be seen later, one 
of the witnesses was taking his wedding-trip on horseback, 
with his wife behind him on the same horse. But let us 
turn to the testimony. 

When the trial was held, two women described the size 
and color of all the horses, the harness of the heavy team, 
the figure and appearance of Jester — height, a little over 
six feet, weight about one hundred and eighty pounds, 
with a hook-nose, gray eyes, powerful physique, and large 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 275 

hands. They further testified that, looking into the first 
wagon as it approached, they saw lying in the bottom the 
outlines of a human form with a buffalo-robe thrown over 
it; and they gave this testimony confidently, thirty years 
after the crime, notwithstanding they were twelve and 
fourteen years of age, respectively, when the events trans- 
pired, and though they were riding at a canter in the face 
of a heavy snow-storm, with veils tied over their faces, and 
the horses which they met were travelling at a fast trot 
when they passed in the storm. A farmer swore that the 
buffalo-robe was covered with blood, and still another wit- 
ness that, while helping Jester start his wagon, the canvas 
blew back and he saw the body of a man with his throat 
cut. The description of the body was that of young Gates. 

A man who had just been married, and was taking his 
wife behind him on his horse to their new home, described 
the horses attached to each wagon, the wagons, and the 
dog; and this in spite of the fact that his own horse was 
going at the "single foot" gait, that Jester's horses were 
trotting past, that it was snowing hard, and that, being on 
his honeymoon, other thoughts and interests would seem 
to be occupying his mind. 

A man of thirty-six, who consequently was six years of 
age at the time of the crime, testified that later, during the 
thaw and heavy rains of spring, he and his father saw the 
body of a young man of eighteen or twenty years of age 
floating down the stream. He described the color of his 
hair and complexion, and said that he had on a blue- 
checked shirt and blue overalls. His description of the 
shirt agreed with that of Mrs. Gates of a shirt which she 
had made for her son. It is interesting to note, in this 
connection, that neither the father of the six-year-old boy 
nor the girls who saw the outlines of a human form in 
the wagon, nor the man who helped start Jester off, said 
anything about their observations until Gates' disappear- 
ance and Jester's arrest had been published. 



276 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

It is quite evident that, whatever the merits of the case, 
the testimony of these witnesses, after a lapse of thirty 
years, was amazingly exact. Yet it would be unfair to 
assume that they were dishonest. All of those from whose 
testimony we have quoted were people of good standing 
in the community. They could be relied upon both in 
word and deed. The attorney for the defense, 1 to whom 
the writer is indebted for the facts in the case, speaks in 
the highest terms of these witnesses. "They were among 
the best people of Monroe County," he says. "They 
wanted to be truthful, and they were very friendly to me, 
entertaining me overnight when I was looking up evidence 
preparatory to the trial." 

What then was the explanation of their remarkable 
exactness, even in the smallest and in some instances least 
noticeable and least interesting details? The key to the 
mystery lies in the way in which the case was worked up, 
in the publicity that it received, and in human psychology. 
After Jester's final arrest, Pinkerton detectives were em- 
ployed and seven or eight leading criminal lawyers of Mis- 
souri and Chicago were engaged to assist the prosecution. 
The detectives, as they secured one fact after another, cul- 
tivated the information by suggestive questions and state- 
ments to those with whom they conversed. When, for 
example, a prospective witness said that there was a buf- 
falo-robe in the wagon the detectives would ask if it cov- 
ered the outlines of a human form. The man would 
think it likely, and soon that it did. Of course the case 
was featured in the county newspapers. It was a first- 
class news story. Pictures were published, pictures of 
Jester and Gates, pictures of the horses and wagons, pic- 
tures of the dog, and pictures of scenes in the chain of 
events leading to the alleged crime. The pictures were 
based on what witnesses said they saw, and what the de- 
tectives said they must have seen, and reportorial imag- 

1 Mr. Joseph S. Mclntyre, a practising Saint Louis lawyer. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 277 

ination supplied whatever was lacking. The clothing of 
Gates was described, the articles he had with him enumer- 
ated, the facts to which certain witnesses would swear 
were told to other witnesses and reported in the news- 
papers. Indeed, all the events of the crime as it was 
conceived by witnesses, reporters, and detectives were por- 
trayed and described with much the effect of a moving- 
picture representation, until fact and fiction were indis- 
tinguishable. It is a well-known principle of psychology 
that if you tell a man something often enough he finally 
accepts it; and as he continually repeats it, even as a pos- 
sible fact, it ends by becoming firmly fixed. Then he be- 
lieves that he saw or heard it. 

We must not forget that all this happened thirty years 
after the events. The undetected vagueness of memory- 
details of the witnesses furnished a fertile soil for the 
growth of imaginary pictures. The attempt to see faces 
in the moon is comparable to their experience. With a 
dim outline, or a sketch with several possibilities, there is 
always a strong tendency to fill in the outlines, usually 
with what is in one's mind. As an illustration, ask a group 
of persons to indicate the kind of a figure six which is upon 
their watch-dial. They will be found to divide between 
VI and 6. A few, whose "memory" is more accurate than 
that of the others, recalling that the figures take their 
line of direction from the centre of the dial, will write the 
figures upside down. All, except those to whose attention 
the peculiarity has already been called, will "remember" 
seeing the figure. Yet, in watches with a second-hand 
there is no six. 

Despite the best intentions of truthful people, there are 
many ways in which the memory may be disturbed with- 
out the individual being aware of the alteration; and a 
brief reference to some of the causes of these memory dis- 
tortions will reveal the fickleness of this reproducer of past 
experiences. These alterations of memory have a bear- 



278 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

ing upon reports of events given either as sworn testimony 
or in social intercourse, and all are intimately related to 
the psychology of the day's work. 

One of the causes of unintentional perversion of memory 
is the constant talk that an exciting occurrence produces. 
There is always a tendency to say what we wish might 
have happened. This is especially true when we our- 
selves participated in the events. "The most frequent 
source of false memory," says James, 1 "is the accounts 
we give to others of our experiences. Such accounts we 
almost always make both more simple and more interest- 
ing than the truth. We quote what we should have said 
or done rather than what we really said or did; and in the 
first telling we may be fully aware of the distinction. But, 
ere long, the fiction expels the reality from memory and 
reigns in its stead alone." It is not necessary, however, 
that we be participants in the events. The tendency to 
enlarge upon a story is human. So strong is this inclina- 
tion that if there is nothing unusual in the occurrence the 
story-teller transforms the common into the uncommon. 
This is especially true when the marvellous is involved. 
Man is saturated with the mysterious. James quotes a 
good illustration from Carpenter's Hours of Work and 
Play. 

"It happened once to the writer to hear a most scru- 
pulously conscientious friend narrate an incident of table- 
turning to which she appended an assurance that the 
table rapped when nobody was within a yard of it. The 
writer being confounded by this latter fact, the lady, 
though fully satisfied of the accuracy of her statement, 
promised to look at the note she had made ten years pre- 
viously of the transaction. The note was examined, and 
was found to contain the distinct statement that the table 
rapped when the hands of six persons rested upon it ! The 
lady's memory as to all other points proved to be strictly 

1 Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, pp. 373^. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 279 

correct; and in this point she had erred in entire good 
faith." 

Closely related to the effect of much talking is the in- 
fluence of much thinking. Long-continued pondering over 
details which one feels must have happened, and trying 
to recall whether they occurred or not, usually ends in 
their recollection. The reasons behind this are much the 
same as those that produce this result through much talk- 
ing. We think of what we wish had happened, of possible 
interpretations of actions, and soon we are unable to dis- 
tinguish between things that actually happened and our 
thoughts about what might have occurred. Our wishes, 
hopes, and sometimes fears, are the controlling factors. 
At times this takes a form that may be called retroactive 
memory. Knowing what we ought to have done on a 
given occasion we think the action into the memory series. 
Again, it may be a transposition of events. We may have 
performed the act, but not at the moment when we locate 
it in the chain of events. It may be, for example, that we 
examined the ground where an alleged crime occurred, 
but our examination was made before the hour of the 
crime; we, however, insert this act later in the memory 
series, i. e., after the crime. This is especially noticeable 
in descriptions of occult phenomena where unusual care 
is needed to detect deception. Many times the slate has 
been cleaned by the sitter, and then allowed to pass into 
the hands of the medium. Afterward the cleaning is re- 
membered as having been done just before the writing, 
and the slate as not having left the sitter's hands. In all 
cases "in which a man frequently thinks over his experi- 
ences, he is very apt to come in the end to seem to re- 
member clearly things of which he was at first very doubt- 
ful; and his memory is likely to be wrong. This happens 
through a confusion of what he at first remembered and 
what he afterward often imagined. In other words, he 
forgets that he has only imagined a thing of which his 



280 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

memory was not certain, and then remembers what he 
has imagined as if it were a real memory of an actual 
fact." l The old soldier with his wonderful tales of events 
in which he participated, but which never occurred as he 
relates them, though he is entirely oblivious of inaccuracies, 
is an illustration. 

Gross, commenting upon this influence of the imagina- 
tion, finds striking departures from the truth. We must 
not think, he says, 2 "that an honest witness will at all 
hazards stick to the truth. It is difficult to believe how 
far the imagination of emotional, though highly intellectual, 
persons will carry them. . . . One has only to note how 
easily emotional persons can be made to relate occurrences 
which they have never seen or heard, and that without 
any recourse to suggestion. In spite of their earnest de- 
sire to stick to the exact truth, on the first opportunity 
they strike off to the right or left, and at last can no longer 
distinguish between what they have really seen and what 
they have only imagined." 

Moreover, a warm imagination often leads one to be- 
lieve that events have been experienced when the only 
source of information concerning them is the narration 
of others. This of course subjects the "remembered" 
facts to all the inaccuracies of hearsay evidence. Boswell, 
referring to his first meeting with Johnson, gives an illus- 
tration 3 of this. "Mr. Murphy," he says, "in his Essay 
on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson, has given an account 
of this meeting considerably different from mine, I am per- 
suaded without any consciousness of error. His memory, 
at the end of near thirty years, has undoubtedly deceived 
him, and he supposes himself to have been present at a 
scene which he has probably heard inaccurately described 
by others. In my note, taken on the very day, in which I 

1 F. Kuhlmann, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 16, pp. 39s/. 

1 Criminal Investigation, translated by John and J. L. Adam, pp. 77, 90. 

3 Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by G. B. Hill, vol. 1, p. 453, note. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 281 

am confident I marked everything material that passed, 
no mention is made of this gentleman; and I am sure that 
I should not have omitted one so well known in the literary- 
world. It may easily be imagined that this, my first in- 
terview with Doctor Johnson, with all its circumstances, 
made a strong impression on my mind, and would be regis- 
tered with peculiar attention." Again, referring to Mrs. 
Piozzi's account of an incident and conversation between 
Doctor Johnson and himself, Boswell says: 1 "Mrs. Piozzi, 
in her Anecdotes, has given an erroneous account of this 
incident, as of many others. She pretends to relate it 
from recollection, as if she herself had been present; when 
the fact is that it was communicated to her by me. She 
has represented it as a personality, and the true point has 
escaped her." 

Another cause of false memory is that the purpose to do 
something at the moment may later lead us to insert the 
act in its proper place in the series of events without our 
being aware that we did not do it. An illustration of this 
tendency has been related by Hodgson. 2 A Hindoo jug- 
gler was sitting upon the ground making wooden figures, 
and coins two feet from him dance around, leap from the 
ground and strike one another. An officer who was 
present "drew a coin from his pocket," Mr. Hodgson says, 
"and asked the juggler if this coin would also jump. The 
juggler replied in the affirmative, and the coin was then 
placed near the others on the ground, after which it dis- 
played the same propensity to gymnastic feats as the 
juggler's own coin. Two or three other travellers were 
present at dinner in the evening of the same day, and in 
the course of the conversation the officer described the 
marvellous trick which he had witnessed in the afternoon. 
Referring to the movements of the coin, he said that he 
had taken a coin from his own pocket and placed it on the 

1 Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 216, note. 

* Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 4, p. 385. 



282 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

ground himself, yet that this coin had indulged in the same 
freaks as the other coins. His wife ventured to suggest 
that the juggler had taken the coin and placed it on the 
ground, but the officer was emphatic in repeating his state- 
ment, and appealed to me for confirmation. He was, 
however, mistaken. I had watched the transaction with 
special curiosity, as I knew what was necessary for the 
performance of the trick. The officer had apparently in- 
tended to place the coin upon the ground himself, but as 
he was doing so, the juggler leaning forward, dexterously, 
and in a most unobtrusive manner, received the coin from 
the fingers of the officer as the latter was stooping down, 
and laid it close to the others. If the juggler had not thus 
taken the coin, but had allowed the officer himself to place 
it on the ground, the trick, as actually performed, would 
have been frustrated." Evidently, the officer's imagina- 
tion of himself as placing the coin upon the ground sup- 
pressed and finally obliterated the impression made by 
the juggler's action in receiving the coin. We not only 
allow our attention to be distracted by actions which are 
or are not intended to produce the distraction, but we also 
forget that it has been distracted; and then we fill in the 
gap by some conjectured or imagined events which form 
a juncture with the contiguous portions of the memory 
series and from that time on they appear to be an integral 
part of our memory of what happened. These interpola- 
tions account for many of our distortions of facts. 

To the preceding causes of defective observation and 
memory disturbance we must also add biased opinions. 
They almost invariably lead one .to overlook details op- 
posed to one's personal interests or convictions. This is 
a phase of the tendency to forget what one prefers not to 
believe, hopes is not true, or is in opposition to opinions 
which one holds and perhaps has already expressed. A 
person does not intentionally forget these things, but in 
some way they are repressed by the opposing ideas that 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 283 

are more congenial. Reference has been made in an 
earlier chapter to Darwin's observation of this failing in 
himself, and in courts of justice the testimony of interested 
witnesses is subject to this defect. Long-continued think- 
ing about matters which have a controlling personal in- 
terest, and trying to recall whether certain things hap- 
pened, is likely to end in the recollection of the desired 
circumstances. Because interested witnesses are per- 
suaded of the justice of their case they have dominat- 
ing beliefs, and imagination readily supplies the evidence 
for their truthfulness. This mental attitude renders the 
testimony of believers in the "occult" valueless for 
"supernormal" exhibitions. "Events that under ordinary 
circumstances, or if the witnesses were intent upon dis- 
covering a trick, would make a comparatively deep and 
lasting impression upon consciousness, glide past or are 
swiftly forgotten, simply because of the absorption of the 
spectator's interest in the supposed 'supernormal' mani- 
festations." Hodgson relates an incident which came under 
his own observation. "At a materialization seance given 
by Firman, at which I was present," he says, "a supposed 
'spirit-form' appeared, draped in a semi-transparent flow- 
ing robe — so transparent, in fact, that Firman's bare arm 
was visible behind it, waving it to and fro. When the 
figure retired to the cabinet, the door closed upon a portion 
of the robe. The door opened again slightly, and the end 
of the robe was drawn into the cabinet. Most of the sit- 
ters perceived this clearly, but one, a 'believer,' averred 
conscientiously that the fabric was not withdrawn, and 
that he saw it slowly melt away." x 

Bias naturally prepares the way for the influence of sug- 
gestion as a mental disturbance to any one giving testi- 
mony or "repeating" conversation. Every one is sus- 
ceptible to this subtle force, but an acquiescent state of 
mind enables the effect to be produced more easily. Scores 

1 Op. cit., pp. 389-390. 



284 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of people have seen the face of a departed sister, brother, 
wife, or husband in the same illuminated mask. 1 An ex- 
pectant, confiding state of mind is all that is needed. Then 
deception is easy. Here is an illustration. A conjurer, 
posing as a medium, produced a slate communication from 
the sister of a sitter. It was a common slate, washed clean 
and placed "flat upon the table with a bit of pencil about 
the size of a pea underneath. We then joined hands," one 
of those present states, "and after the lapse of about ten 
minutes, under the full glare of gaslight, we could dis- 
tinctly see the slate undulate, and hear the communica- 
tion that was being written, a copy of which I herewith 
append: 'My dear Brother: You strive in vain to unlock 
the hidden mysteries of the future. No mortal has facul- 
ties to comprehend infinity. Charlotte.'" These lines 
"were not only characteristic of my beloved sister while 
in the form," the recipient said, "but the handwriting so 
clearly resembled hers that, to my mind, there cannot be 
a shadow of doubt as to its identity." And again, "a 
short communication from my mother, in her own hand- 
writing," the same recipient insisted, "was found plainly 
written." 2 Since the "medium" frankly says that he 
wrote both messages with his own hand, the resemblance 
to the writing of his sister and mother must have been 
imagined by a submissive mind yielding to the suggestion 
that he would receive messages from them. 

The suggestions in the Jester case were given by the 
questions of the detectives and reporters, as well as, more 
directly, by published pictures and newspaper stories, and 
by conversation in the country stores; for the case caused 
great excitement. It was widely and daily discussed. So 
ideas were planted in the minds of those to be called to 

1 Instances can be found in various books which reveal the methods of 
"mediums," as D. P. Abbott's Behind the Scenes with the Mediums, or 
Hereward Carrington's Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. 

2 S. J. Davey, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 4, 
p. 405. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 285 

the stand, and when planted they grew. Lord Bacon, 
with that keen insight into human nature that he always 
showed, once said: "It is a good point of cunning for a 
man to shape the answer he would have in his own words 
and propositions; for it makes the other party stick the 
less." l Kuhlmann, drawing on a number of investiga- 
tions, enforces this view. "Memory illusion," he says, 
"is greater when statements made are answers to par- 
ticular questions, than when the statements are made 
spontaneously on the part of the subjects without special 
questioning . . . questions are always more or less sug- 
gestive in the first place, and they may as frequently sug- 
gest the wrong thing as they do the right." 2 

Experiments have proved that, in general, when the 
average man reports events or conversations from memory 
and conscientiously believes that he is telling the truth, 
about one-fourth of his statements are incorrect; "and 
this tendency to false memory is the greater the longer the 
time since the original experience and the less carefully 
one has observed." It should be remembered in compar- 
ing the results obtained by the experimental method that 
in most of the laboratory tests the subjects know that an 
investigation of observation and memory is being made. 
Consequently, they are more observant, and for this rea- 
son the results are more favorable to memory than in 
matters of every-day life when events come suddenly and 
unexpectedly upon the observers and when, so far as they 
are aware, they will never be called upon to make a deposi- 
tion regarding what they see or hear. In the laboratory, 
also, the subjects are on their guard against such extraneous 
influences as suggestion; and this, again, is not the case 
with what they see or hear on the street or in social inter- 
course. 

Further evidence of the influence of suggestion is ob- 

1 Essays : " Of Cunning." 

1 American Journal of Psychology, vol. 16, pp. 395/. 



286 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

tained from the study of reports of different witnesses to 
a series of events, as, for example, a so-called spiritualistic 
seance. Whenever separate accounts of the same sitting 
are written by the different observers, without communica- 
tion of any kind from the beginning of the seance till the 
reports have been finished, the witnesses are never in agree- 
ment even regarding critical matters. 1 When, however, the 
report is written by one of the observers and then passed 
to the others for criticism or approval, the account is 
usually indorsed as written, with few if any corrections. 
The inference from these two facts is strong that the "re- 
membrances" of the co-signers of the account are greatly 
aided by the suggestions of the written report placed in 
their hands. 

Another form of suggestion was recently reported to 
the writer by a physician. "My sister and I were stand- 
ing at a street-corner one afternoon, waiting for a car," 
he said, "when suddenly a runaway horse and wagon came 
dashing by. The horse ran rapidly for a block, turned 
suddenly into another street, and then apparently stopped 
with a loud crash and shriek. We rushed to the corner to 
assist the injured. But to our amazement no horse or 
vehicle was in sight nor was there any evidence of a col- 
lision. We made inquiries and watched the newspapers 
but were unable to learn of any such accident. My sister 
and I are considered close observers, and we would have 
been willing to swear that the wagon was demolished and 
that some one was severely injured." 

As will be recalled, we asked two preliminary questions 
regarding the value of some of the evidence given in the 
trial of Jester: First, would any one note, as carefully as 
the testimony indicated, the peculiarities of a chance 
traveller on the road, especially at a time when no reason 
existed, so far as known, for unusual observation ? Second, 

1 A study of the accounts of the several witnesses of Davey's exhibitions, 
to which reference and citations have already been made, will show this. 
Reports of observers of other performances reveal the same disagreement. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 287 

would observers be likely to remember the details of what 
they had seen after the lapse of thirty years? These 
questions were asked with reference to a particular case, 
but the answers bear upon reports of events in general; 
and psychology replies definitely, No, to both questions. 
Indeed, as will be seen later, experiments discredit many 
positive statements made in reporting experiences or con- 
versations even if the information is given shortly after 
the events occurred. 

Interest and attention, to be sure, tend to fix facts and 
descriptions in memory. But persons are often called 
upon to give information regarding matters that attracted 
no special attention when they transpired, as in the Jester 
case. The keenest interest and closest attention, however, 
will not assure truthful accounts; for memory is exceedingly 
plastic and prone to error; and it is always exposed to the 
deflecting influences of repeated narration, with its gener- 
ous mixture of error, continuous thinking about the affair 
with numerous fictitious insertions, intended actions not 
carried out, biased opinions, and suggestion. 

Unreliable, however, as memory based on observation 
may be, second-hand accounts and those told or written 
some time after the events have occurred are still less 
dependable. Speaking of an abridged account of a seance, 
Hodgson says 1 that "a series of incidents which indicate, 
as I think, how the chief trick was performed, are entirely 
omitted; and writing, which according to the original re- 
port is described as having been obtained on an ordinary 
slate, is described in the later version as having been ob- 
tained between sealed double slates." Omission of things 
that actually happened, together with the substitution of 
events which did not occur, are evidently the rule in mem- 
ory rather than the exception. 2 Social gossip, of course, 

1 Op. cit., p. 399. 

2 For excellent examples, see article by S. J. Davey, in Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research, vol. 4, p. 405, to which reference was made 
above. 



288 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

prepares the stage for innumerable omissions and substitu- 
tions. Certain things are reported to have been said or to 
have occurred, and soon it is assumed that they happened. 
Then they become a part of the recollection. 

As for the more general and fundamental question, 
Does the feeling of accuracy assure a reasonably correct 
reproduction, when an earnest desire to relate the facts 
as they occurred is assumed? the answer of psychology 
is equally definite: the feeling of accuracy is no proof of 
a correct reproduction. The omissions are forgotten; 
the substitutions, transpositions, and interpolations fit 
naturally into the memory series without mental distur- 
bance. The honest narrator, or witness, feels that he is 
telling the truth, however far his statements may deviate 
from the facts; and it was so with the witnesses in the 
trial of Jester, though their stories were told and their 
testimony was given thirty years after the events which, 
when they were observed, did not have the element of 
interest needed to fix even the attention. 

"I have every reason to think," says the attorney for 
the defense in the Jester case, "that all of the witnesses, 
even the man who was six years old when the events oc- 
curred and who described minutely the color of the shirt 
and overalls of the body floating down the stream, believed 
that they were testifying truly, and that they thought 
they actually saw all of the details which they related. I 
am convinced, however, that the general belief in the 
guilt of Jester, and the fact that the witnesses had talked 
over these details for many years, that they had been 
talked to by detectives, that they had been told the things 
to which others would swear, and that they had seen many 
pictures of the events, all produced such a psychological 
effect upon the witnesses that they confused what they 
remembered with the creations of imagination. This 
observation, I may say, has been verified by my subse- 
quent experience in trial courts. I have seen many wit- 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 289 

nesses who unquestionably thought they were telling the 
truth but who wholly failed to do so." 

The fickleness of the memory of well-meaning witnesses 
which this attorney has observed in court trials is equally 
true of the reports of events, actions, and conversations 
in every-day life. Observation is unreliable. Actions are 
transposed, omitted, substituted, and inserted in the 
series of events observed. The mental attitude at the 
moment, personal bias, and suggestion are always exerting 
their influence; and reports of conversations are subject 
to the same inaccuracies. Statements are misunderstood, 
qualifying remarks pass unnoticed, views are perverted, 
opinions added, and much is forgotten. Then that which 
has been lost from memory is replaced by products of the 
imagination. The speaker is made to say what we think 
he should have said — what we would like to have had him 
say; and in this last, the personal attitude toward the one 
whom we are quoting, or toward the whole situation, is a 
large determining factor. 

Unfortunately, abundant proof of the waywardness of 
memory has not altered the practice of trial courts. The 
attorneys for one side endeavor to nurse remembrances, 
and those opposed to confuse them. Honest witnesses are 
subjected to the same sort of cross-examination as is ap- 
plied to those under suspicion. Suggestions, so far as 
court rules and decisions permit, are given, and every effort 
is made to confuse the memory instead of to assist it in 
recalling. Then the task of separating truth from error 
or falsehood is left to the jury, which is too often composed 
of men who are inexperienced in making distinctions and 
in drawing inferences. The writer is aware that, in 
American practice, obtaining and producing evidence is 
the duty of the parties' attorneys; the judge is merely to 
decide on its admissibility. Theoretically, the purpose of 
the trial is to lay the facts before the jury. Practically, 
however, the attorneys too often try to confuse the truth. 



290 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Their aim is to acquit or convict. It is sometimes said in 
praise of a criminal lawyer that he has secured more ac- 
quittals than any other lawyer. It would seem as if the 
time had come when it should be some one's duty to dis- 
cover the truth rather than to obscure it — to promote jus- 
tice rather than to win cases. Though in court practice 
success is striven for regardless of its consequences to others, 
judges in their decisions are taking some of the facts of 
psychology into account. A few quotations will show this. 

Referring to errors of memory from some of the causes 
discussed under the Jester case, Mr. Justice Brown, giving 
the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, said: 
"Witnesses whose memories are prodded by the eager- 
ness of interested parties to elicit testimony favorable to 
themselves are not usually to be depended upon for ac- 
curate information." l And again, another judge says 
that courts are "fully aware of the ease with which honest 
witnesses can persuade themselves that they remember 
some bygone circumstance which they are ingeniously 
induced to think that they remember." 2 And, once more, 
in evaluing memory after a long period of time, Justice 
Brown expressed the opinion that "after the lapse of 
twenty-five years it would, in the nature of things, be 
highly improbable that any witness who saw this fence for 
the single day it was exhibited would be able to describe 
it accurately." 3 Mr. Justice Swayne, thinking also of the 
element of time, said: "The confidence of the attacking 
witnesses is often in proportion to the distance in time that 
one is removed from the other. Their imaginations are 
wrought upon by the influences to which their minds are 
subjected, and beguile their memory." 4 

Judge Choate, referring to the effect of much thinking 
and of the imagination, expressed the opinion that "the 

1 143, U. S. Rep., 275, 284. * 33, Fed. Rep., 922, 924, per Shipman. 

* 143, U. S. Rep., 275, 289. 

* Quoted in Hawes v. Antisdel, 2 B and A. Pat. Cas., 10, 22. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 291 

effort of the memory often supplies circumstances harmoni- 
ous with the general impression of a fact or event, but 
which are supplied only by the imagination and the associa- 
tion of ideas." 1 And, again, Mr. Justice Field, speaking 
of the influence of much conversation about a case, says: 
''Some, from defective recollection, will blend what they 
themselves saw or heard with what they have received 
from the narration of others." 2 And still another judge 
gives the result of his experience with witnesses quite as 
definitely when he says that "things are told to persons 
till they verily believe that they witnessed them; and we 
repeat events until we are ready to swear, in the utmost 
sincerity, that we were spectators of their occurrence." 3 
When a matter becomes serious enough to be a persistent 
subject of conversation it assumes an importance in the 
minds of those who were present which it did not possess 
originally. Observers then become possible witnesses, 
and as they think about it and talk it over, they imagine 
that they gave it closer observation than was the case. 

That we do not observe events and the persons engaged 
in them as accurately as is commonly supposed is often 
proved in matters of every-day life; yet people continue 
to have perfect confidence in what they "see." Now, if 
we can determine, approximately, the residue of fact left 
in the memory after an experience, we shall be able to 
strike a balance between truth and fiction, between what 
may be expected from the memory and that which is the 
product of the imagination stimulated by suggestion and 
the other mental excitants that have been mentioned. 
With this purpose in view the following scene was enacted 
before a small class in psychology. 

The regular work of the class was in progress, one of the 
young women being engaged in making a report on an in- 
vestigation which she had made. The instructor in charge 

1 4, Fed. Rep., 730, 741. * 4, U. S. Rep., 42, 52. 

3 Miller v. Collen, 5 Ga., 341, 349. 



292 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

— the writer — was sitting with the class. Since this is his 
custom when his students give reports, it caused no expecta- 
tion of anything unusual. The only member of the class 
who was aware that anything out of the ordinary was to 
happen was the young woman who was to give the report. 
It was feared that an unexpected, violent interruption of 
her paper might give too serious a nervous shock, so she 
was informed just before she began to read that there would 
be a sudden interruption and that she should not be dis- 
turbed by it. 

A few moments after the beginning of the report an al- 
tercation was heard in the corridor, then the door burst 
open and four students, two young men and two young 
women, dashed into the room. Miss R., immediately after 
entering, dropped a brown-paper package on the floor. 
This package contained a brick so that the occurrence 
might not be too inconspicuous. K. flourished a large 
yellow banana as though it were a pistol, and all struggled 
across the room to the side opposite the door, where the 
writer was sitting among several members of the class. 
He stood up at once, protesting at the interruption, and as 
he arose he threw a small torpedo on the floor. It ex- 
ploded with the intonation usual with these children's 
Fourth of July torpedoes. H. fell back, crying, "I'm 
shot," and was caught by Miss R. All then hurried out 
the open door, Miss T. picking up the brown-paper pack- 
age which had been dropped near the door by Miss R. 
The entire scene occupied less than thirty seconds and it 
was startling to the class, all of whom jumped up and 
crowded back against the wall, believing that it was a real 
riot. 

Some of the "witnesses," especially the young women, 
were in such a state of fright that it seemed a wise pre- 
caution to reassure them with the information that the 
scene was "made to order." This assurance cut out at once 
the element of reality. But it also produced a condition of 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 293 

comparative mental calmness, enabled the observers to 
review the events more clearly, and weakened the force of 
the one or two suggestions offered by the scene. This adds 
greatly to the significance of the meagre observations. 

The effect of the announcement was at once observable. 
Those who had crowded back to escape the "danger" 
breathed again, and returned to their seats. Blank- 
books were immediately distributed and the members of 
the class were asked to write down what they had seen. 
Care was taken not to make any suggestions, but definite 
instructions were given to name the participants and to 
describe their clothing as accurately as possible. Three 
of those who burst into the room were members of the class, 
and since the class was small — there were twenty-nine 
students in it — they were well known to their associates. 
The third, Miss R., was not a member of the class but she 
was a senior, prominent in college activities, and all of the 
class knew her. To avoid uncertainty regarding this the 
observers were asked, after they had finished writing, 
whether the names and faces of any of the participants 
were unfamiliar to them and they all said that they were 
not. None of those who took part were in any way dis- 
guised and the brief scene was enacted in full view of the 
spectators, since they were seated in an irregular circle, as 
was usual with that class, and the events occurred within 
the circle. Let us now see what was observed with suffi- 
cient accuracy to enable the "witnesses" to record the in- 
formation at once. 

If the reader will turn to the "scene" it will be noticed 
that only a few things were done and that these few things 
were quite definite and conspicuous. The "play" was 
not overloaded. Four persons burst into the room. This 
number was not so large as to be confusing. They were 
readily discernible. Then there were two men and two 
women. It is doubtful whether an arrangement of persons 
could be planned more suitable for easy observation. Yet 



2 9 4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the twenty-nine "witnesses," only three knew that four 
persons dashed into the room. These three also realized 
that two were young men and two were women. To the 
others it was an indefinite number, to a few less than four, 
but to the majority more; some characterized them as "a 
crowd" or "a mob." That only three actually observed 
the number was conclusively shown again when they tried 
to name and describe the participants. In doing this the 
"witnesses" were forced to face the question of numbers. 
It should be emphasized that the "witnesses" were defi- 
nitely asked to name and describe the actors. This is 
important because, in this respect, narration was supple- 
mented by what was essentially interrogation, though 
without suggestion. Failures and omissions were there- 
fore quite clearly due to inability to comply rather than to 
inadvertence. 

Though the four participants were well known to the 
class and no disguises were used, no one recognized all of 
them. The result so far as concerns recognition by the 
twenty-nine "witnesses" is the following: 

7 recognized 3. 

11 recognized 2. 

7 recognized 1. 

4 recognized o. 

Surprising as these figures may seem to those who think 
that, even under excitement, they could recognize an ac- 
quaintance whom they had seen at least three times a 
week for eight months, the results are nevertheless too 
favorable to observation and memory, for recognition by 
elimination of those present played its role. This could 
not well be avoided without taking chances of having the 
participants unknown to members of the class. It seemed 
the better plan, therefore, to select the actors chiefly from 
the class, but this left three vacant chairs, and probably 
some of the "witnesses" unintentionally noted the absen- 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 295 

tees though they were requested to rely wholly upon mem- 
ory. The writer is of the opinion, however, that the ob- 
servers tried honestly to conform to instructions, since by 
this time they were greatly interested in the experiment. 

Now, as to mistaken identity. Eight "saw" persons 
who not only took no part in the performance, but who 
were either not present or who sat at a distance from the 
place where the scene was staged. Of these eight, three 
"saw" a member of the class who sat in the second row of 
the circle; one, a former member of the class who had 
withdrawn about three months earlier; a young woman 
who had never been in the class and was not present was 
"seen" by two; still another young woman, likewise not 
a member of the class and not present, by one, and, again, 
a member of the class who sat at a distance from the scene, 
by one. 

The descriptions of clothing were so general as to be 
worthless for purposes of identification. Only thirteen of 
the twenty-nine attempted any sort of description even of 
those whom they recognized. All except one of these were 
women. Some "described" only one, and others two or 
three. The largest number of descriptions of any one 
actor was eleven. H., the object of these descriptions, 
wore a dark-blue suit, but none of the eleven made that 
distinction. They said either "dark suit" or "blue suit," 
with the exception of one who gave "bluish gray," the 
color of another suit that H. had occasionally worn. Only 
two noticed a conspicuous red tie, and one "saw" that his 
shoes were muddy and his face dirty, neither of which 
statements was true. As a matter of fact, he is one of those 
young men who are always neat, and who never have an 
article of dress out of order, and on this day his shoes were 
polished as usual. 

The next largest number of descriptions of any one of 
the actors was six. These descriptions referred to Miss 
T., who wore a green skirt, white chiffon blouse, and a 



296 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

black hat. Only one of the six described her skirt as green. 
Three said she wore a green suit, without mentioning her 
white blouse. Evidently, green left an impression which 
later was "remembered" as the only color. One clothed 
her in a brown skirt. No one noticed her black hat, but 
four "saw" a red one on her. This was the color of the 
hat which she had worn in class up to this time. 

Miss R. wore a black skirt, white blouse, and a brown 
hat. She was described by three. All of these said that 
her hat was black, two of them putting a feather on it, 
which was true of her brown hat. One saw her in a long 
grayish coat, and another in a tan coat. As a matter of 
fact, she wore none. 

K., who wore a greenish suit, with coat collar turned 
up, was described by three. No one noticed that his suit 
was green. One said that he had on a dark-blue suit, and 
still another, a dark gray. One said that he had a black 
eye, which was not true, and no one observed that his coat 
collar was turned up. 

The other attempts at description were either with mis- 
taken recognition or without recognition. That the "de- 
scriptions" may be complete I will quote them. "Mr." 
[identity unknown] "wore a light suit." Another, "the 
young woman" [this observer saw but one] "had on a large, 
dark hat, the young man dark clothes." And again, 
"both of the boys had on dark suits and one of them a 
green and red striped tie." And finally, "I saw a man all 
painted, with a red handkerchief around his neck." Neither 
of the young men was painted, and neither wore any sort 
of handkerchief on his neck. Recall of the "red and green 
striped tie" on one of the young men is interesting because, 
though this observer saw practically nothing but confusion, 
and though she "recognized" one who had never been in 
the class and who was not present on this occasion, she, 
nevertheless, was the only observer who noted the tie of 
one of the young men minutely enough to recall its red 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 297 

and green stripes. Evidently, inability to recall and de- 
scribe certain things is not necessarily proof of the worth- 
lessness of all observations of a witness. An illuminative 
side-light upon the kind of things observed, even under 
excitement, is an accurate description, as was afterward 
learned, of an unplanned, trivial incident. One of the 
young women in her excitement dropped her purse, and 
in recovering it she and the young woman sitting next ex- 
changed seats. All this was observed and recalled, and 
the women identified by a witness who was unable to de- 
scribe the clothing of any of the participants, and who, 
in addition, "saw" several things that did not occur. 

These descriptions of the participants are all that were 
given — all that the "witnesses" were able to remember 
after the excitement through which they had passed, and 
without suggestions of any sort. Their inadequacy for 
purposes of identification is apparent. They fit scores of 
men or women who might have been in the vicinity of the 
"crime," quite as well as they apply to the actors them- 
selves. Of even greater importance, however, is the fact 
that the indefiniteness and vagueness of these descriptions 
indicate a state of mind that makes a fertile soil for sug- 
gestions in the form of questions, newspaper reports, and 
innuendoes in court trials. The descriptions illustrate the 
rough sketches mentioned above, which can be filled out 
in a variety of ways to satisfy the bias of the witnesses 
or the needs of the prosecution. I do not mean that law- 
yers deliberately set themselves to the task of bringing 
out false testimony. Examination and cross-examination, 
however, are in their very nature suggestive, and with soil 
so admirably prepared for the purpose, an abundant crop 
of imaginary pictures and scenes will be readily grown. 
Rough outlines which can be filled in are the structures 
out of which illusions are made, and the mind's imaginings 
are the material that gives life and reality to the picture. 
One who was seen shortly after the events, for example, 



298 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

is thought of in connection with them, and finally as pres- 
ent at the time. 1 

Several things done plainly in front of the witnesses were 
either not observed or were wrongly observed. Six saw 
one of the young women drop something and, of these, 
four noticed who did it. Only one of them, however, was 
able to describe the package as a brown-paper parcel. 
No one saw Miss R. pick it up as she hurried out. Six 
saw some one pick up the parcel, however, but five of these 
said it was Miss T., while one thought it was H. This 
illustrates the tendency to fill in the outline memories. 
Apparently, all that impressed these six in this connection 
was that something was picked up. The persons who 
were not present at the scene were inserted by some of the 
spectators for one reason or another. Conversation with 
some one shortly before entering the class, or merely the 
sight of him, might be sufficient to cause his insertion into 
the scene as one of the participants. 

That sight alone is sufficient incitement to produce 
"memories" was shown in an exceedingly interesting man- 
ner. Two of the witnesses "saw" a dog in the room. 
Since no dog was present and the word was not used, this 
interpolation must have had its origin in a stray dog that 
had been wandering around the quadrangle during the 
morning and which these two witnesses afterward remem- 
bered having seen. 

Five heard or saw a pistol-shot. Three of the five saw 
the flash. "I saw the blaze," wrote one of the young 
men. "I know some one fired a pistol because I saw the 
flash," was the statement of a young woman. This, of 
course, was the result of suggestion. The yellow banana 
was flourished and then pointed at H. At that moment 
the toy torpedo was exploded and H. staggered back, cry- 
ing: "I'm shot." This was all that was said during the 

1 Those interested will find abundant illustrations in Illusions, by James 
Sully. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 299 

performance, except as the instructor protested the pres- 
ence of the "rioters," and ordered them out. Further, 
the "witnesses" were asked to report what they saw, not 
what they heard. Hence, the pistol-shot was not suggested 
by the question. Several other things seen by the spec- 
tators but which did not correspond with the facts are also 
worth recording since, taken in connection with the things 
mentioned above, they reveal the illusory possibilities of 
the human mind. 

One "noticed Miss T.'s necklace," though she did not 
wear one and had not been accustomed to do so in the 
college. As an illustration of the different ways in which 
the same thing is seen by several witnesses, I will quote 
the statements of those who described the entrance of H. 
"Mr. H. was throwing his arms about wildly, and Miss T. 
was trying to quiet him." "All were beating H." "Mr. 
U. caught H. as he seemed about to fall." (U. was a mem- 
ber of the class.) "H. came rushing in and fell on his 
knees." "They seemed to be pursuing H., whom they 
dragged out of the room." "I recognized only H., and he 
seemed to be a kind of leader." "They appeared to be 
trying to subdue H." "H. looked as though he had been 
seriously injured." This was suggested by the fact that 
H. entered the room first, and the others seemed to be 
pursuing him. Besides, when the "pistol" was fired he 
was the one at whom it was pointed. Finally, one of the 
young men wrote: "They were attempting to hold back 
a man with long, black hair." This evidently refers to 
H., since the other young man had light hair and followed 
H. into the room. H.'s hair, however, was short. It is 
another instance of interpolation. The description is that 
of a young Italian who had been a member of the class 
earlier in the year, but who withdrew several months be- 
fore the experiment. Later, this witness in his deposition 
named the Italian among the participants. 

One short report is worth quoting in full because, except 



300 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

for the recognition of one of the participants, the "witness" 
unintentionally reconstructed the scene from her imagina- 
tion. "All I saw," she wrote, "was Miss T. with a tin 
bucket in her hand. Then I saw a man all painted, with 
hair standing on end, and with a red handkerchief around 
his neck. I don't know who he was." 

The testimony of the only member of the class who had 
been forewarned — the young woman who was to have 
given her report on an investigation — is especially inter- 
esting because surprise should have been largely absent 
in her case and fear must have been wholly eliminated. 
She had been told that she would be interrupted and that 
she should not be disturbed but should observe what hap- 
pened. Her "testimony," therefore, was that of an in- 
telligent young woman who calmly viewed an exciting 
scene in a more or less impersonal attitude. Yet it con- 
tains nothing of evidential value. "I heard screaming," 
she wrote, "the door was pushed open, a young man 
rushed in with a young woman hanging on his arm. They 
were followed by a young man. They went right in front 
of me; the struggle was followed by a report that I thought 
was a revolver. I cannot tell who the people were. The 
young woman had on a large, dark hat and a white shirt- 
waist. The young men had on dark clothes. They ap- 
peared to be below the medium height." The young men 
were not below the medium height, and, as we have seen, 
there were two women though she saw but one. 

Finally, five of the reports did not contain an item of 
truth or fiction. These witnesses saw nothing except a 
mob bursting into the room, and confusion. Six others 
were unable to testify to anything more than the identity 
of one of the participants. To these, all else was a blank. 

The writer is aware of the difficulty of arranging even a 
short scene and being sure that it is carried out exactly 
as planned. In the one of which we have been speaking, 
however, certain things were definite and these are the ones 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 301 

upon which we have judged the evidence. The number of 
persons bursting into the room, their identity, color of 
clothes, the yellow banana, dropping of the package by one 
and picking it up by another — these are all matters con- 
cerning which there can be no uncertainty. Further, for 
purposes of control, a departmental instructor, who had 
followed the rehearsals of the scene, was present to see that 
nothing was omitted and nothing done that was not pro- 
vided for in the programme. 

Identification is, of course, fundamental in criminal cases, 
and positive recognition by well-intentioned, uninterested 
persons is commonly accepted, unless the alibi is convincing. 
In our drama-experiment the observers were well acquainted 
with the participants, yet they were surprisingly incom- 
petent as witnesses. Their minds were therefore prepared, 
had the affair involved a real crime, to recognize one 
against whom there might appear to be corroborative 
evidence. The " witnesses" had little definite knowledge 
of what actually happened. Had a crime been committed 
their testimony would have had slight value. Yet it 
would have been accepted because they were eye-witnesses. 
Only a few identified actors, and in several instances these 
identifications were so uncertain as to be readily transferred 
to some one else under the influence of suggestion. 

A case 1 in a German police-court illustrates this transfer 
of identification and also indicates that such mistakes may 
not be infrequent in actual court cases. A seventeen-year- 
old boy, named Zinny, was accused of having stolen cer- 
tain articles from a house. The evidence showed that the 
thief, in the attempted flight and pursuit, threw the things 
away, and that Zinny, when caught and brought back was 
at once recognized as the robber by the wife of the janitor 
of the apartment. She also identified the defendant as 
Zinny, the thief. Further, two men swore that the de- 
fendant was the man whom they had seen carrying the 

1 Archiv.f. d. gesamte Psychologie, vol. 9, p. 71. 



302 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

things out of the gate, and who was pursued and caught. 
The identification seemed perfect and no witnesses were 
called for the defense. Before passing sentence the 
judges asked the defendant whether he had anything to 
say for himself. To the amazement of the court he re- 
plied that the verdict did not interest him in the least 
because he was not Zinny, but Nowakowski. The ex- 
planation of this farcical ending to a serious trial was that 
some days before Nowakowski had been convicted by testi- 
mony which he knew to be false, though perhaps not in- 
tentionally untruthful. He had, therefore, arranged with 
Zinny to exchange roles in the court proceedings. He took 
Zinny's place to show the judges how little reliance can be 
placed upon testimony regarding identity. The court felt 
that its dignity had been trifled with and its feelings cruelly 
wounded, and the judges could be convinced that the testi- 
mony of so many honest folk was erroneous only after the 
real Zinny and the jailer were brought before them and had 
verified Nowakowski's identification of himself. It was 
then learned, to the further discomfort of the judges, that 
one of the prosecuting attorneys in the trial of " Zinny," 
one of the presiding judges, and a subordinate court official, 
had participated in the original case against Nowakowski, 
and yet did not recognize him when he appeared before 
them as defendant in the assumed role of Zinny. 

Returning now to the general question of observation 
and its evidential value, several drama-experiments similar 
to the one described from the classroom of Washington 
University have been enacted by others for the same 
purpose. Some of these scenes, in the opinion of the 
writer, are too complex — they test observation of details 
that could hardly be expected under excitement; yet all 
conform reasonably well to the conditions of an actual 
crime thrust unexpectedly upon the attention of witnesses 
who later are called into court to testify to what happened. 

Von Liszt, professor of criminal law in the University 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 303 

of Berlin, staged the following scene 1 in his seminar. 
The members of the seminar were discussing Tarde's in- 
vestigations. Professor von Liszt asked: "Has any one 
something more to say before I give the floor to the first 
speaker to sum up the results ? " One of the students arose 
and was given the floor. "I wish to discuss Tarde's doc- 
trine from the standpoint of Christian ethics." 

"That's all nonsense," exclaimed another student, rising 
excitedly. 

"Keep still until you're spoken to," shouted the first. 

"That's an insult," cried the second, jumping up. 

"If you say another word — " exclaimed the first, ad- 
vancing with clinched fist. 

"Drop your hands," shouted the second, drawing a 
revolver and thrusting it into his face. 

Professor von Liszt seized the man's arm, the revolver 
dropped to the level of the breast of his adversary and 
was fired. The members of the seminar, who still be- 
lieved that they had witnessed a real quarrel which just 
missed being a tragedy, were then told that, since the 
affair would doubtless be investigated in the courts, they 
had better write down what had occurred. Some of them 
did so at once, and others at varying intervals of time. As 
was to be expected, no one saw and heard what had hap- 
pened. Those who took no part were made participants 
by word or deed, and the real actors were made to do 
things that had not occurred. 

Drama-experiments, such as have been outlined, were 
first tried because of rather startling attacks upon the value 
of testimony. Binet had previously published 2 a mass of 
convincing evidence of the subtle influence of suggestion. 
He insisted that all questions, even the most innocent, 
suggest details to the witness which he then honestly be- 

1 L. W. Stern, Zur Psyckologie d. Aussage. Reviewed in L'Annee psycho- 
logique, vol. 12, p. 182. 
2 La Suggestibilite. 



304 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

lieves he observed. Even if they do nothing worse, in 
Binet's opinion, they force the memory to be exact in mat- 
ters that are vague and uncertain. Forced memory, Binet 
found, gives 26 per cent of errors. When a moderate 
suggestion is combined with the forcing process the errors 
rise to 38 per cent. After the witness has committed him- 
self there is a tendency to adhere to the statement and 
finally to believe it. 

The growth and spread of suggestion is, of course, well 
known, but Defoe gives such a good illustration from the 
Plague of London that it is worth quoting. 1 "Another 
encounter I had in the open day also," he says; "and this 
was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France 
into Bishopsgate Churchyard, by a row of alms-houses. . . . 
In this narrow passage stands a man looking through be- 
tween the palisades into the burying-place, and as many 
people as the narrowness of the passage would admit to 
stop without hindering the passage of others, and he was 
talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing now to one 
place, then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost 
walking upon such a gravestone there. He described the 
shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly that 
it was the greatest matter of amazement to him in the world 
that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden 
he would cry: 'There it is; now it comes this way.' Then, 
' 'Tis turned back' ; till at length he persuaded the people 
into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it, and 
another fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day 
making a strange hubbub, considering it was in so narrow 
a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the 
ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were called away, 
disappeared on a sudden." Again, to cite a more recent 
instance, every one remembers the Cossacks tiptoeing 
through London at the beginning of the present war. They 
were "seen" by many, and, though they vanished like 

1 Journal oj 'the Plague Year, London, 1900, p. 27. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 305 

ghosts, their number was variously estimated from 35,000 
to 1,000,000. It was, then, facts similar to these that led 
Binet and Stern 1 to doubt the accuracy of much of the 
testimony that is given, and to undertake the experimental 
examination of evidence. 

Some of the experimental results were obtained by the 
so-called picture-method. The "witnesses" examined a 
picture for a minute, more or less, and then wrote a de- 
scription of it from memory. Sometimes they were ques- 
tioned about the things they omitted or upon which they 
only touched. The conclusions from these experiments 
were sufficiently impressive to attract the attention of 
jurists, but it was maintained that the picture- test is a long 
way removed from the conditions of every-day life with 
which courts have to deal. They are concerned, it was 
said, with events and "adventures" in which emotions 
play a leading part. So von Liszt, at Stern's request, pre- 
pared and staged the drama-experiment to which reference 
has been made. 

As a matter of fact, however, picture-tests have demon- 
strated a number of things in the psychology of testimony 
that probably could not have been singled out and dis- 
covered in drama-experiments. Picture-tests easily lend 
themselves to scientific accuracy. Scenes, even short 
ones, are difficult to stage exactly as prepared. Something 
may be inadvertently introduced or omitted, and the 
change escape the observation of the participants. To be 
sure, these errors in the production may be to a great ex- 
tent eliminated by having some one present who knows 
what should be done, as was the case in the writer's drama- 
experiment. But even then something regarded as im- 
portant, may be slurred and the defect in the performance 
escape the attention of the control- witness. Besides, this 
control-witness is subject, if in a less degree, to the psy- 
chology of other observers. He is not altogether immune 

1 L. W. Stern, Beilrage zur Psychologie d. Aussage. 



306 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

to the contagious emotions of the moment. So the con- 
clusions from picture-tests must supplement those gained 
from scenes more comparable with the events of life. 

Let us then briefly consider a few of the results of the 
picture-tests. All investigators agree that accurate testi- 
mony is the exception and not the rule. The imagination 
helps out the memory. Stern 1 tested a number of uni- 
versity students and professors, allowing them to examine 
a picture for forty-five seconds. They were then requested 
to write immediately a description of the picture. These 
descriptions were repeated at the end of five, fourteen, and 
thirty-one days. Since the observers were forewarned 
that it was a test of observation, and that they would be 
asked to write what they remembered, they naturally ex- 
amined the picture in detail and with great care. There 
was the maximum of attention. Moreover, the test was 
devoid of excitement and of personal prejudices; and there 
were no suggestions either by questions or by conversa- 
tion among the participants. Further, the observers were 
intelligent persons in the best years of their mental vigor, 
from seventeen to forty-six years of age. For these reasons 
the results may be regarded as revealing the least average 
errors for observation in daily life. Yet, even under these 
exceptionally favorable conditions, the errors were nearly 
6 per cent in the reports written immediately after the 
observation, and averaged 10 per cent in the subsequent 
descriptions. Out of two hundred and eighty-two reports 
only seventeen were correct, and fifteen of these were among 
those written immediately after examination of the pic- 
tures. 

It is generally agreed that questions increase the range 
of testimony regarding what has been observed, but there 
is less accuracy than in free narration. Mile. Borst 2 found 

1 Op. cit. 

2 Archives de Psychologie, vol. 3, p. 298. See also Arthur Wreschner, 
Archiv.f. d. gesamte Psychologie, vol. 1, p. 148. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 307 

a few more correct statements when the witnesses were 
questioned, but the number of replies in which errors 
were mingled increased in a greater proportion. The net 
result, therefore, was less reliable than in free narration. 
One is always prone to tell more than one knows, and 
every question is another temptation. Narration, on the 
other hand, is thought by some to give too loose a rein to 
fancy. It should not be forgotten, however, that the 
credibility of a witness is one of the things to be settled 
before accepting his testimony, and unlimited freedom to 
talk himself out gives valuable evidence regarding his ac- 
curacy. Indeed, quantity and quality of testimony are 
frequently in inverse ratio; and in this connection Mile. 
Borst, with keen psychological insight, observes that for- 
getfulness is one condition of reliable testimony, provided 
the witness is aware of his tendency to forget. 1 Attention is 
rigorously selective, and this selection is based on the rela- 
tive importance of the details; but it should be remembered 
that the choice of what is important is a personal matter. 
A thing has only the importance that one gives to it. Its 
significance as evidence may be quite different. Colors, 
size, and duration of time, for example, are often funda- 
mental in court cases, yet evidence regarding these matters 
is commonly unreliable. 

As to the effect of lapse of time between observation of 
an object or event and testimony regarding it, there is 
not complete agreement. As personal or public interest 
in a matter increases, however, accuracy seems to de- 
crease at a rate which may seriously discredit honest tes- 
timony, especially when the case is one that causes much 
talk and gossip during the interval. The experimental 
investigations of this question are probably too favorable 
to delayed evidence because the "witnesses" were usually 
asked not to discuss the matter with one another, and 
there were no personal or emotional factors involved. 

1 Op. cit., p. 301. 



308 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Another approach to this subject of testimony is the 
influence of the oath. The manner of administering the 
oath in these investigations is to ask the "witnesses" to 
underline the statements to the accuracy of which they 
would be willing to swear. Mile. Borst concludes 1 from 
her investigations that about a twelfth part of sworn tes- 
timony is false. Stern puts a lower value upon it, and 
Larguier des Bancels, 2 after reviewing various investiga- 
tions, is of the opinion that, in general, a tenth of the 
honest evidence given under oath is untrue. One of the 
" sworn statements" obtained by Stern is worth quoting. 
This witness, a young man, occupied the eighteenth place 
in the list based on the percentage of errors. The state- 
ment, written three weeks after the observation of the 
picture, runs as follows: "The picture shows an old man 
seated on a wooden bench. A small boy stands at his left. 
He is watching the old man feed a pigeon. Another pigeon 
is perched on the roof ready to fly down to be fed." As a 
matter of fact there was no pigeon in the picture. The 
boy himself was being fed with a spoon by the old man 
from a dish held in the man's lap. 3 

Testimony is a solemn affirmation, usually given under 
oath in courts of justice. Its social counterparts are repe- 
tition of conversations, spreading of rumors, and reports 
of scenes which have been heard or read. These latter 
differ from testimony chiefly in the occasion that prompts 
them; and their social function gives them a peculiar in- 

1 Op. cit., p. 313. 

a L' Annie psychologique, vol. 12, p. 214. 

3 No attempt has been made to cover the literature of this subject. It is 
already too extensive to treat in a single chapter. Those who are interested 
will find 127 titles at the end of John H. Wigmore's popular article in the 
Illinois Law Review, vol. 3, p. 399. Professor Wigmore, unrestrained by a 
judge, has followed the lawyer's method of confusing the issue with much 
irrelevant matter. In this way his article is made more interesting but less 
valuable. Subsequent investigations are listed in various numbers of the 
Zeitschrift f. angewandte Psychologie, the successor of the Beitrage zur Psy- 
chologie d. Aussage. 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 309 

terest. Let us therefore see how accurately such reports 
are reproduced. 

In order to test memory of a short narrative the follow- 
ing newspaper item was slowly read to six college students, 
members of the beginning class in psychology in Washing- 
ton University — to which freshmen are not admitted — and 
each of these six immediately repeated it from memory to 
a group of five. All, both the leaders and members of the 
several groups, then wrote it down: 

"A Greek naval officer who was on board the cross- 
Channel steamship Sussex when she was damaged by an 
explosion made a report of the occurrence in which several 
Greeks lost their lives. 

"The officer asserts there is no reason to believe that 
the Sussex was torpedoed, and declares that the vessel 
must have struck a mine, possibly one of British make. 
According to this report, the Sussex carried only four life- 
boats, which were not sufficient to accommodate the pas- 
sengers and crew. 

"The captain of the Sussex was killed when the explosion 
occurred, and the first officer, on sending out a wireless call 
for help, gave the wrong position of the ship. As a result 
of this error the arrival of aid was delayed and the number 
of victims was increased." 

In estimating the accuracy of memory, this selection 
was divided into six statements. The first corresponds 
to the first paragraph, the second to the first sentence of 
the second paragraph, and the third to the second sentence. 
The last paragraph was divided into three statements, 
that the captain was killed by the explosion, that the first 
officer gave the wrong position by wireless, and that as a 
result of the delay caused by this error the number of 
victims was increased. It would have been easy, of course, 
to further subdivide the "story," but it seemed best to 
take the large conspicuous features. This, of course, gave 
the story-teller the advantage in estimating the accuracy 



310 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of the reports. In computing the results, omissions were 
counted as errors, but a statement was regarded as correct 
if the central thought was given. It was not expected that 
the hearers would remember the wording. Since only the 
substance of the statements was required the results are 
rather startling. Of the leaders of the groups, to whom 
the news item was slowly read by the instructor, and who 
wrote it down as soon as they had repeated it to their 
several groups, three made a record of sixty-six and two- 
thirds per cent of correct reproduction, one of fifty per cent, 
and two of thirty- three and one- third per cent. Among 
the members of the groups to whom the leaders repeated 
the news story immediately after it was read to them, four 
made sixty-six and two-thirds per cent, one fifty per cent, 
four thirty-three and one-third, twelve sixteen and two- 
thirds, and two failed to remember any of the story. They 
were, therefore, marked zero. A number added incidents 
not contained in the selection. This was especially no- 
ticeable with those who remembered little or nothing of 
what they heard. The writer is aware that mathematical 
accuracy cannot be ascribed to these figures. Recollec- 
tion, at times, was neither wholly right nor wholly wrong. 
In such cases the percentage of correctness had to be, in 
part, estimated. In the writer's opinion, however, the 
figures are essentially correct; and he believes that they 
are fairly representative of the accuracy of stories in the 
second and third repetition by different persons. It 
should be emphasized that these students knew that their 
memory of the story was to be tested. This increased 
their attention. Yet, even with this added incentive, their 
reproductions were not remarkable for accuracy. Evi- 
dently, memory of what one has been told should always 
be regarded with suspicion. 

There is, however, another interesting question connected 
with this matter of reports and rumors. Through how 
many mouths must a story pass before it loses its identity ? 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 311 

To test this the following newspaper clipping was read to 
one member of the class who, in turn, repeated it at once 
to the next, and so on to the end. As soon as a student 
had heard and repeated it, he (or she) immediately wrote 
it down. It will be observed that the story is shorter than 
the preceding: 

"Thomas McCarthy, who has also used the names 
Burns and Hopkins, was arraigned yesterday on the charge 
of having conspired to forge and pass stolen money orders. 
His case was adjourned for a week. He was arrested on 
Monday night in a saloon. The Assistant District Attor- 
ney said yesterday that the score of money orders, which 
the man was accused of passing at department stores, were 
some of those stolen by yeggmen a month ago from a Post 
Office in St. Louis. The orders had been filled in for vary- 
ing amounts, none of which were more than $100. Mc- 
Carthy was held in $10,000 bail." 

The first paper, perhaps, had better be quoted that the 
readers may see how it started down the line. " Thomas 
McCarthy, who formerly gave the name of Burr and Buss, 
was arrested for forgery. The trial will come in a week. 
He was arrested last Monday night in a corner saloon. 
He tried to pass checks formerly used by Leighton in the 
department stores. Since none of the amounts were over 
$100 he was let out on $1000 bail before the district at- 
torney." 

Beginning with the second attempt at reproduction of 
the story there were continuous and increasing omissions 
and additions, with frequent changes in the aliases. The 
seventh report was so far reduced as to be worth quoting. 
It is as follows: "There was a man named McCarthy who 
went by the name of Burney. He forged a check for $ico 
and was arrested." Number eleven lost the surname and 
changed the alias to "Sussex," evidently because of the 
story heard two days before. The story now becomes: 
"There was a man named Thomas. He went by the name 



312 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

of Sussex. He forged a check for $100 and escaped." 
Here the story may be said to have lost all resemblance to 
that with which number one began. This test, like the pre- 
ceding one, gave memory an advantage that it does not 
have in matters of every-day life. We do not usually ex- 
pect to be called to account for our information. Hence we 
are less attentive. These students were interested in the 
experiment. There was rivalry to see who could remember 
most accurately. They concentrated their attention to the 
limit of their ability. Yet the results were chiefly remark- 
able for their omissions and additions. Second-hand reports 
are undependable, and after they have passed through three 
or four mouths, in intervals of several days, they are quite 
certain to have little or no resemblance to the original 
story. 

In conclusion, let us refer again to the questions asked 
at the beginning of this chapter. First, what are the 
chances for a truthful narration of that which has been 
seen or heard ? Clearly, the chances of even a reasonably 
accurate narration are small. We have found observation 
itself exceedingly defective and unreliable; and when to 
the inaccuracy of observation there is added the disturb- 
ing effect of intervening time, with the deflecting influence 
of conversation about the events and the excitement of 
the imagination, the testimony of witnesses becomes ex- 
tremely undependable. Imagination reconstructs events 
with many omissions and substitutions, and the final out- 
come is likely to be so different from the original as to be 
almost unrecognizable. Expectation of an act may cause 
it to be seen, and intention to do something translates the 
thought into deed. Suggestion is always operative — sug- 
gestion of actions when one is an observer, and suggestion 
from questions, even of fact, in conversation or when on 
the witness-stand. 

The second question was, Does the feeling of accu- 
racy guarantee substantially correct statements in testi- 



TESTIMONY AND RUMOR 313 

mony or conversation? The evidence and experiments 
again enter a denial. Confidence and assurance signify- 
little. A man may think an occurrence so intensely in con- 
nection with other events that it assumes a place among 
them. He then "remembers" that it happened. Bias, of 
course, is operative both in observation and in memory, 
and at the end it exerts a powerful influence upon the feel- 
ing of accuracy. 

Finally, knowledge of the inadequacy of observation and 
memory, and conviction of the possibility of error by one- 
self are the best guarantees of truthful reports. The most 
positive witnesses and narrators of conversation are to be 
regarded with suspicion because of their very assurance of 
accuracy. 



CHAPTER IX 
OUR VARYING SELVES 

It could hardly have been Stevenson the romancer who 
made Doctor Jekyll say: "It was on the moral side, and 
in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough 
and primitive duality of man; I saw that of the two 
natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, 
even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only 
because I was radically both." Rather, this was Steven- 
son the observer of human nature, who in common with all 
great novelists, possessed much of psychology and a bit 
of philosophy for the reflective moments of his characters. 

Howells has graphically described these varying selves in 
the same person through the observation of one of his char- 
acters in April Hopes. Mrs. Brinkley was speaking of the 
Pasmer family but with special reference to Alice Pasmer. 

" 'The Pasmers are the dullest and most selfish people in 
the world,' she exclaimed. 

'"Oh, I don't think that's her character,' said Miss Cot- 
ton, ruffling her feathers defensively. 

'"Neither do I. She has no fixed character. No girl 
has. Nobody has. We all have twenty different charac- 
ters—more characters than gowns — and put them on and 
take them off just as often for different occasions. I know 
you think each person is permanently this or that; but my 
experience is that half the time they're the other thing.' " 

We all of us think that we know what the "self" is but 
the moment we try to describe it, difficulties arise and its 
various, contradictory characteristics become apparent. 
We readily distinguish between ourselves and other in- 
dividuals. Our feelings, thoughts, interests, and emotions, 
generally, are also distinctive. They may be shared, to a 

314 



OUR VARYING SELVES 315 

certain extent, by others, but our own radiate a warmth 
that makes them personal. Here, too, diversity within 
the "self" becomes evident. Self-appreciation and ambi- 
tion conflict with humility; material prosperity with social 
and ethical ideals; self-preservation, or its more modern 
counterpart, self-advancement, with the rights of others. 
Perhaps, though, it is in action, the outward expression of 
our varying and conflicting emotions, that the contradic- 
tory character of the "self" is most noticeable. "I was 
not myself when I did that," is a frequent excuse; and this 
defense has passed over into law in the distinction between 
premeditated and unpremeditated homicide. At times 
the variations pass beyond the normal and an individual 
exhibits peculiarities so diverse that they have no common 
bond, not even that of memory connecting the varying 
selves. It is the intention of the writer to consider only 
normal variations, except for one case of peculiar interest 
because it approaches the parting of the ways. 

Just because people are prone to think themselves more 
consistent than they are and because the opinion is rather 
prevalent that only under pathological conditions do vary- 
ing personalities dwell side by side in the same individual 
and reveal themselves successively, just for that reason a 
survey of alternating selves in the same person seems prof- 
itable. All is grist that comes to your mill if you once 
begin to consider this question — all literature, history, 
biography, your friends, neighbors, and family. Even the 
crowned heads of Europe offer a crop for the garnering. 
Some recompense for the effort may be a quickened under- 
standing of human nature and a keener appreciation of 
its incongruities and consequent frailties. 

A bit of reflection will soon convince us that we are a 
strange composite of selves. No one can be labelled and 
tagged for any length of time. No one completely reveals 
himself at any moment. Proverbs such as "You must 
eat a peck of salt with a man before you know him" in- 



316 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

dicate that the experience of the race confirms this human 
characteristic. Sometimes we reveal alternately different 
or conflicting selves. Again, we possess two selves strug- 
gling for the mastery, either consciously or unconsciously. 
The self may change with physical conditions, fatigue, age, 
environment, companions, ambition, and mood. 

We may dismiss briefly the influence of physical well- 
being and fatigue. The familiar amiability after a good 
dinner and the distorted mental vision due to fatigue or 
pain are generally recognized, and the necessity of reckon- 
ing with these factors has become axiomatic. Just how 
far the control of the self is possible and what its relation 
to conduct is will be touched upon later. But first let us 
turn to some of the many types of personalities that refuse 
to fit into an orderly scheme and yet are not unusual. 

General George B. McClellan's Own Story 1 contains ex- 
cellent illustrations of two or three of the twenty characters 
that Mrs. Brinkley thinks every one has. "I pray every 
night and every morning that I may become neither de- 
pressed by disaster nor elated by success, and that I may 
keep one single object in view — the good of my country." 
Compare this humility with the attitude expressed in the 
following passages in which modesty has entirely vanished 
and his view of himself is immensely enlarged. "Had the 
measures recommended" [by himself] "been carried into 
effect the war would have been closed in less than one-half 
the time and with infinite saving of blood and treasure." 2 
And, besides, he tells us of the acknowledgment of gener- 
ous enemies "that they feared me more than any of the 
northern generals, and that I had struck them harder blows 
when in the full prime of their strength." 3 There is even 
evidence that he so far forgot "the good of my country" 
as to permit thoughts of a dictatorship to flash through his 
mind; but perhaps this was another way of saving the 
country from the inefficiency of the other generals. "How 

J P. 173. 2 P. 105. 3 P.3S. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 317 

these brave fellows love me," he is reported 1 to have said 
to one very near to him, "and what a power their love 
places in my hands ! What is there to prevent my taking 
the government into my hands?" Could one ask for two 
more widely varying selves? Yet each was apparently 
unaware of the existence of the other. A study of Mc- 
Clellan's life has convinced the writer that he was earnestly 
desirous of serving his country at the cost of any personal 
sacrifice and that the other self — the self-aggrandizement — • 
came into no noticeable conflict with his self-sacrificing 
loyalty. 

Sometimes the two sets of ideas or beliefs are more 
clearly contradictory. People with such conflicts, like 
those of the McClellan type, are not aware of the contra- 
diction because the two systems of thought flow along 
in parallel streams without overflowing their banks and 
mingling with one another. Stanton seems at times to 
have exhibited even more striking contradictions. In a 
letter to Dana, written in February, 1862, he exclaimed: 
"Much has been said of military combinations and of 
organizing victory. I hear such phrases with apprehen- 
sion. They commenced in infidel France with the Italian 
campaigns and resulted in Waterloo. Who can organize 
victory? Who can combine the elements of success on 
the battlefield ? We owe our recent victories to the Spirit 
of the Lord that moved our soldiers to rush into battle 
and filled the hearts of our enemies with dismay." 2 This 
is interesting from one who devoted tireless energy to or- 
ganizing victory. "From the moment he took hold of the 
war machine, he saw that every part was in order, so that 
his own work and others' work would not be thrown away. 
And back of the labor, the system, the insight, was the 
animating soul, an enormous, driving energy, which thrust 

1 Union Portraits, by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 15. Quoted by Bradford 
from Piatt's Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union, p. 294. 

2 Recollections of the Civil War, by Charles A. Dana, p. 7. 



318 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

right on through obstacles and difficulties, would not 
yield, would not falter, would not turn back. . . . The 
very life and. heart of the war depends on railroads. Stan- 
ton sees it and gets men like Haupt and McCallum out of 
civil life to do feats of engineering which command the 
admiration not of America only, but of the world." x 
This does not look like trusting to the "Spirit of the Lord 
that moved our soldiers to rush into battle and filled the 
hearts of our enemies with dismay." 

Sir John Hawkins offers another illustration of this con- 
tradiction of ideas and beliefs. His love for his fellow 
sailors led him to devote his fortune to founding a hos- 
pital for indigent sailors. Yet this fortune was made in 
the slave traffic in which on his own boats and with his 
knowledge the most atrocious cruelties were practised, 
the slaves being treated far worse than cattle. Again, 
as we have found, people of some scientific knowledge, 
who surely realize the supreme importance of human life, 
are misled by an orgy of sentimental sympathy through 
the phrase "cruelty to animals," to oppose animal experi- 
mentation for the relief of human suffering. As an in- 
stance of the curious separation of personalities in some 
of these people, Havelock Ellis remarks: "I have often 
noted with interest that a passionate hatred of pain in- 
flicted on animals is apt to be accompanied by a compara- 
tive indifference to pain inflicted upon human beings, 
and sometimes a certain complaisance, even pleasure, in 
such pain." 2 The truth of this observation is supported 
by a news item in the daily press 3 immediately after the 

1 Union Portraits, by Gamaliel Bradford, pp. 188 jf. 

2 Impressions and Comments, p. 154. 

3 December 15, 191 7. Verified in all essentials by letters from Mr. 
Murray and from the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals. The money — over $1,400, as it turned out — was raised by 
popular subscription. Consequently, the charter of the Society would not 
have forbidden the collection and use of the money for relief of the suf- 
ferings of human beings, had the Society so desired. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 319 

Halifax explosion. "R. H. Murray, Chairman of the 
Animal Relief Committee/' the communication says, 
"announced to-day the receipt of a telegraphic contribu- 
tion of $1,000 from the Massachusetts Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The gift, which is 
to be used in caring for animals injured or made home- 
less by the disaster, came as a great surprise to Mr. Murray 
and was deeply appreciated. The Massachusetts Society 
has also sent two of its trained agents to assist in the 
animal relief work." And this money was sent for the 
relief of homeless animals when men, women, children, 
and babies were dying of cold and hunger, when human 
beings were suffering indescribable agony from their in- 
juries, and sufficient money could not be obtained to 
relieve the anguish. Yet these good people are not by 
nature brutal. It is just an amazing exhibition of two 
selves which are not allowed to intermingle so as to make 
one consistent self. 

Turning to a different type of varying selves, there are 
people who, though well aware of the bacterial origin of 
certain diseases, believe that bacteria can be thought out 
of the body. And they would also treat the wounded 
bodies of soldiers by the action of the mind. As though 
bullet-holes in heart and lungs could be closed by thoughts ! 
Yet these persons accept scientific values in other matters 
than bodily injuries. They recognize cause and effect in 
the external world. And their manner of reasoning, when 
out of hearing of their enticing siren, is quite up to the 
average. 

The same irreconcilable conflict not infrequently exists 
between altruistic and business ideas. A man may be 
hard and even cruel in his business dealings yet give gener- 
ously to philanthropic organizations and to his church. 
The recent investigation of vice in Baltimore is an ex- 
treme illustration. The report of the commission has 
not been published. It is doubtful if it ever will be, be- 



320 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

cause it would expose the double personality of too many 
men high in business, social, and religious life. 

Not long ago a $6,ooo-a-year manager of a large com- 
pany, who was accused of being the leader of a gang of 
highway robbers, suddenly rose in court at his trial in 
Brooklyn and cried: "I am guilty. I have lived two lives, 
a respectable one and that of a highwayman." When he 
sat down the other defendant, an auditor of another large 
corporation, arose and said that he also wished to plead 
guilty. 

An exceptionally convincing illustration of the business 
self, as distinct from the social and religious selves, is given 
by Al Jennings as a part of his experience as a convict in 
the Ohio penitentiary. 

"" "One day as I was driving my machine a well-dressed 
man stepped up beside me and watched the nuts hammer- 
ing out into the box. I recognized him; he had an interest 
in the contract. 

"'What is the capacity of this machine?' he asked. 

'"Fourteen pounds an hour, sir,' I replied. I quote 
this and the following figures from memory, I may have 
them wrong. 

"i'How many pounds do you turn out?' he proceeded. 

"'Sometimes only eleven, sometimes as much as thir- 
teen,' I replied. 

"If you'll speed this machine up without breaking it 
I'll give you a quarter of a cent a pound for every pound 
you make over ten,' he said. That meant perhaps ten 
cents a day — only a little, but it gave me an object in life. 
No free man understands what that means to a fourth- 
class convict. 

"The nut-machine was a delicate thing, and must be 
sped up cautiously. Twisting a screw a sixtieth part of 
an inch too far might smash all the tools on the head-block. 
I nursed it like a baby, and ran it almost to capacity. By 
the end of the month I had earned — if I remember right — 



OUR VARYING SELVES 321 

something more than two dollars. On pay-day I presented 
myself in line for the money. The clerk stared at me — 
he couldn't find my name on the list. 

"I complained to the general manager of our shop. He 
looked sorry for me as he said: 

"'I don't want to hear any more about that. He did it 
to prove that you could speed up the machine. It's an 
old trick.'" l 

It may be said that this contractor could not have been 
a respected member of good society but, unfortunately, 
the facts of this and other similar cases do not justify this 
view. Such men often have good intentions but they 
do not allow their moral ideas to overlap and disturb 
their business methods. They would be uncomfortable if 
they did. Consequently, ideas arrange themselves so as 
to cause the least possible discomfort. This is a phase of 
man's unconscious adaptation to his environment. It is 
the mental side of the adaptation. Like the lower ani- 
mals, man recoils from the unpleasant and seeks that 
which produces an agreeable feeling. So far as his thoughts 
are concerned this is accomplished by allowing them to 
arrange themselves in more or less isolated systems of 
ideas which, as it were, constitute separate personalities — 
different selves. 

An instance of isolated systems of thought is reported of 
Charles Sumner. A poor woman whose claim had been re- 
jected by the Senate was asked why she did not take it to 
Sumner, the senator from her State. "Oh, sir," she replied, 
"I did, but really, sir, Mr. Sumner takes no interest in 
claims unless they be from black people." 2 Gideon Wells, 
speaking in a similar vein, once said: "Sumner would not 
only free the slaves, but elevate them above their former 
masters, yet, with all his studied philanthropy and love 

1 Beating Back, pp. 204/. 

2 History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, by James F. 
Rhodes, vol. VI, p. 24. 



322 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

for the negroes in the abstract" [he] "is unwilling to fellow- 
ship with them, though he thinks he is." l 

In the instances given above it would seem as if the 
contradictory natures existed without even a struggle 
in the consciousness of the person. There is, however, 
another group in which two selves fight for supremacy. 
Now one gains the upper hand, and now the other. He in 
whom the contest is waging may not even know that any- 
thing is happening. His ability to know himself depends 
largely upon his sense of humor, or, which comes to the 
same thing in the present instance, upon his capacity to 
take as impersonal and objective a view of his own actions 
as he gets of those of others. If he can stand off and look 
at himself he may see the joke — or the tragedy. 

H. G. Wells, in his picturesque way, describes two of 
these opposing selves as they manifested themselves in 
Mr. Britling. "This double refraction of his mind," he 
says, "by which a concentrated and individualized Britling 
did but present a larger impersonal Britling beneath, car- 
ried with it a duplication of his conscience and sense of 
responsibility. To his personal conscience he was answer- 
able for his private honor and his debts, and the Dower 
House he had made, and so on, but to his impersonal con- 
science he was answerable for the whole world. The world 
from the latter point of view was his egg. He had a sub- 
conscious delusion that he had laid it. He had a sub- 
conscious suspicion that he had let it cool and that it had 
addled. He had an urgency to incubate it. The variety 
and interest of his talk was largely due to that persuasion; 
it was a perpetual attempt to spread his mental feathers 
over the whole task before him." 2 After Mr. Britling had 
lain awake for a long time one night, worried almost to 
distraction about the troubles of England and his own 
affairs, including his pleasant though naughty little love 

1 Diary, vol. i, p. 502. (The italics are the present writer's.) 

2 Mr. Britling Sees It Through, p. 102. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 323 

intrigues, he suddenly threw back the bedclothes, felt 
for the matches on his bedside table, "lit the stove and 
then strolled to his desk. He was going to write certain 
'Plain words about Ireland.' He lit his study lamp and 
meditated about it until a sound of water boiling called 
him to his tea-making. 

"He returned to his desk stirring the lemon in his glass 
of tea. He would write the plain common sense of this 
Irish situation. He would put things so plainly that 
this squabbling folly would have to cease. It should be 
done austerely, with a sort of ironical directness. There 
should be no abuse, no bitterness, only a deep passion of 
sanity. 

"What is the good of grieving over a smashed auto- 
mobile ? 



"The next morning Mr. Britling came into Mr. Direck's 
room. He was pink from his morning's bath. ... In 
the bath room he had whistled like a bird. ' Had a good 
night?' he said. 'That's famous. So did I.'" 

Victor Hugo once said that at times he felt two natures 
struggling within him, and Al Jennings, the reformed train- 
robber, in commenting upon this, says: "I worked that 
out for myself before I ever heard of Hugo. Only I believe 
that in me those two natures are more widely separated 
than in most men. I kept the better nature dominant 
until the killing of my brother Ed. From then on the 
worst nature ruled my actions. Now, with my new hope, 
I found the worst nature going down and the better com- 
ing up. It didn't happen all at once. I had my bad days, 
when I felt the yearnings to break loose and run amuck. 
But I managed to control these impulses, and, as time went 
on, they became weaker and less frequent." l 

Apropos of our struggling natures, reference may be 

1 Beating Back, pp. 242 /. 



324 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

made to Elbert Hubbard, who represents a phase of human 
psychology by no means rare. His early literary experience 
was the agony of failure. He besieged the leading maga- 
zines but his manuscripts were always rejected. " Strange," 
says one of his reviewers, "that no editor had the intelli- 
gence to appreciate Hubbard," with his wit and dash and 
originality. "Then there would have been no 'Philistine' 
and no 'gospel of protest,' and none of those very Roycrofty 
jokes." His better self, perhaps his real self, would have 
persisted. But in his bitter disappointment the other self 
appeared. 

After a man is dead it is comparatively easy to estimate 
him with calmness and justice. The fact that he cannot 
talk back and defend himself urges even his bitterest 
enemies to fairness. During the life of Fra Elbertus the 
best that one commonly heard said of him was that he was 
original, witty, and a great advertising success. Of the 
unbeautiful things said, there were many. According to 
one writer, 1 Mr. Harry Taber was the author of "A Mes- 
sage to Garcia." The sage of Aurora, as Mr. Hartt tells 
the story, received the manuscript for publication, "wrote 
an introductory paragraph, a conclusion, and an occasional 
interpolation, and published the essay over his own signa- 
ture." A fair-sized volume could be filled with other 
unlovely acts reputed to this exponent of beauty. 

"On the other hand," continues Mr. Hartt, "I have lis- 
tened as cordially to accounts of the man's nobler side. 
From a lady formerly employed at the Roycroft Shop I 
learned that he had times of bitter repentance and would 
go and hide in a hut where no one was allowed to come 
near him. She believed, just as I do now, that there were 
two Elbert Hubbards, both real, with a frightful warfare 
between them. It was a real Elbert who took the thread- 
bare clergyman to Chicago, and befriended the ex-convict, 
and preached a glowing idealism even after the highly 

1 Rollin Lynde Hartt, Boston Evening Transcript, May 5, 1915. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 325 

peculiar circumstances attending his divorce and re- 
marriage. It was a real Elbert who announced himself 
as the 'American successor of William Morris/ while ex- 
ploiting the sort of woman who would 'pay twenty dollars 
a volume for a book like that.' It was a real Elbert who 
won the undying loyalty of his admirers. I recall a letter 
that said hotly: 'How can you traduce that good and great 
man?' 

"Good? Yes, doubtless — better than most of us; capa- 
ble of generous purposes and fine deeds; tearing his hair 
over his weaknesses; wishing to God he were rid of them; 
and yet lacking the moral vigor that would have destroyed 
them root and branch. 

"At the same time give him credit for a courage, rare in 
our day, to stand up for his ideals in the very face of his 
known failures. Most men, exposed as he was exposed, 
and he continued diligently to expose himself, would have 
shut up about sweetness and light and the life beautiful. 
Hubbard refused to. If he could not be what his best 
self earnestly wanted to be he could fight in behalf of his 
best self's aspirations, nevertheless, and it was not hypoc- 
risy." But his pretensions made him very vulnerable. 

The struggle of a suppressed self for expression takes 
various forms in different persons. In Hubbard, if Mr. 
Hartt has rightly interpreted him, it was a moral revolt. 
After his failure to get a hearing in the leading magazines, 
the business self, with which he was richly endowed, 
emerged with all its unloveliness. Hubbard understood 
human nature well enough .to know that people enjoy a 
fight so long as they are safe within the side-lines. So he 
conceived the idea of a magazine of protest, striking at 
whatever the multitude would enjoy seeing hit. And 
there are many such things especially if one uses vague 
phrases which arouse emotional effervescence instead of 
thought. 

Turning aside from varying types of personality, let us 



326 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

consider briefly some of the explanatory influences. 
Growth, of course, always brings the changes of develop- 
ment and advancing years; but these alterations do not 
exhibit contradictions. The differing selves of maturity, 
however, which alternate with more or less regularity are 
a composite product of the natural endowment of the in- 
dividual and the social or commercial environment, the 
surrounding opinions, and the apparent demand for cer- 
tain views or actions. The result is a consciously or un- 
consciously simulated attitude which finally becomes so 
fixed that the original personality reveals itself only when 
the man is taken off his guard, as in the case of one who 
tries to act a part, or, when the better impulses of a weak 
man with high ideals occasionally assert themselves in 
opposition to the pressure of environmental influence. 

Environing conditions are probably quite as responsible 
for the behavior of other men as they seem to have been 
in the case of Jennings. It is not correct to say that 
"every man has his price," but psychology forces us to 
admit the all but resistless power and final triumph of the 
summation of stimuli, or, which comes to the same thing 
in the present instance, of impressions from the outside 
world. Constant dropping finally wears away the stone, 
and the nervous system is not less easily affected. It is, 
of course, an intricately complex process, and the influence 
of the forces that contribute to the final response of a 
human being cannot even be estimated, much less measured. 
Racial factors are continually in evidence. They consti- 
tute the undercurrent that always influences the flow of 
thought, and hence play a hidden role in action. In emo- 
tional vortices, when thoughts run madly round and round, 
these racial tendencies rise to the surface and sweep ideals 
aside. In calmer moments the individual's past life, his 
convictions and aspirations assert themselves, but in stress 
and strain it is a contest between the forces of the racial 
self and the teachings and habits of the individual. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 327 

In moral actions a man's better self, his family heredity 
and early education, at first assert themselves, but, after a 
long period of continuous battering, the stimuli from lower 
ideals are usually victorious. Defaulting bank cashiers 
rarely, if ever, take large sums of money at the outset. 
They begin with small amounts which they confidently 
expect to return. Soon, however, the resistance lessens, 
and then the final defalcation, with its accompanying pub- 
licity and ruin, follows. Only the strongest characters 
can withstand the effect of summation of stimuli. It is 
probably this fact in human psychology which Stevenson 
had observed that led him to make Doctor Jekyll say: 
"All things therefore seemed to point to this: that I 
was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, 
and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and 
worse." 

One cannot help wondering whether this continuous 
battering of the stimuli of political life is the explanation 
of the two selves manifested by Seward, if Frederic Ban- 
croft's estimate 1 of him is correct. Speaking of the two 
"voices" to which Seward was always listening — radical- 
ism and conservatism, aggression and caution, thoughtful 
disinterested statesmanship and opportunism, lofty patri- 
otism and self-advancement, his biographer says: "Seward 
continued to hear the two voices — in fact, he continued to 
act two distinct roles. It was John Quincy Adams Seward 
who uttered the telling phrases and made the severe ar- 
raignments and was the hope of the radicals like Gerrit 
Smith, Theodore Parker, and, at times, of the Garrison- 
ians. . . . On the other hand, Thurlow Weed Seward 
kept in close relations with the party organization; he 
watched the plans of the politicians, changed the pro- 
gram to suit conditions, and tried to win all classes of 
men. Adams Seward was ardently antislavery and ex- 
pected to live in history as a great philanthropist. Weed 

1 Life of William H. Seward, vol. II, pp. 86 Jf. 



328 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Seward was determined to control the patronage and to 
live in the White House. ... A statesman in character 
and purpose, he was yet a consummate opportunist. . . . 
However, nothing of which absolute knowledge is impos- 
sible is more certain than that he was never consciously- 
inconsistent." 

As we have already shown, no one is composed of just 
one set of ideals converging toward a definite, conscious 
end. A man wishes to be honest and upright, straight- 
forward and fair; but he also desires to have the money 
needed to make a good appearance in society; to realize 
his ideals is the way he sometimes puts it to himself. These 
social aspirations occasion the impressions and thoughts 
that, as opportunity offers, lead to attempts to secure 
their fulfilment. If the man is well-meaning, as most 
men are, he continues to justify his actions to himself on 
the ground that it is good business, is not illegal, or it 
will enable him to benefit his fellow men. Here, among 
others, belong those to whom the end justifies the means. 
They do not put it in that way. Indeed, they would deny 
such a utilitarian thought. But the good as these men 
see it, is the supreme thing and they are the ones ap- 
pointed to achieve the result. Some of these are the 
strong characters who override law. They are the benef- 
icent monarchs, either in reality or in thought, in their 
little realms. 

In this group is the German Kaiser, who regards himself 
as the viceroy of God, and consequently incomparably 
superior to those of common clay unilluminated by the 
divine spark. In a speech at Koenigsberg, in 19 10, he 
said: "Considering myself as the instrument of the Lord, 
without being misled by the views and opinions of the day, 
I go my way alone for the prosperity and peaceful develop- 
ment of our fatherland." And, again: "It is a tradition 
of our house that we, the Hohenzollerns, are appointed by 
God to govern and to lead the people whom it is given us 



OUR VARYING SELVES 329 

to rule, for their well-being and the advancement of their 
material and intellectual interests." 

The Kaiser's attitude toward those who dare to dis- 
agree with him to whom God has transmitted his wisdom 
throws an illuminating side-light upon his self. Shortly- 
after his accession "he was requested to sign a judicial 
sentence committing to prison one of his subjects who had 
been found guilty of hinting something disrespectful about 
his sovereign. William was genuinely amazed that such 
an unnatural crime could ever have been committed. He 
read and re-read the papers in the case with the closest 
attention; and finally said to the waiting official: 'It 
would seem that this man hitherto has not been a criminal 
— son of respectable parents, himself in a respectable walk 
of life, with a good education. And yet — how do you 
explain this? — this insult to the Anointed of the Lord? 
Strange ! Strange ! ' " 1 

At another time, "after reading a speech of the Socialist 
leader, Bebel, containing some animadversions upon him- 
self, he turned to the officer in attendance, with clouded 
brow and flashing eye, and remarked in a voice trembling 
with passion: 'And all this to me! To me! What is 
the country coming to?'" 2 

The Kaiser's two selves have been analyzed by one of 
his devoted admirers. 3 "He loves pomp, but his children 
are reared with bourgeois simplicity. . . . He is a mystic 
and a rationalist. . . . He is the legitimate offspring of 
Romanticism and Modernity. Of his two natures, one 
belongs to the twentieth century; one to the Middle Ages. 
One is despotic; one democratic. . . . One talks freely, 
perhaps too freely; one is silent as the sepulchre, and secre- 
tive as the Inquisition. . . . There are two Kaisers, 
both of whom labor for the benefit of the realm, each in 
his separate way, unconscious of heterogeneous intentions." 

1 The Kaiser, by Asa Don Dickinson, p. 165. 

2 Op. cit., pp. 165 /. 3 George Sylvester Viereck. 



33Q PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The following letter by William H. Seward also reveals 
the belief, though considerably diluted, that he alone dis- 
cerned the right and had the wisdom and power to execute 
it. "The President is determined that he will have a com- 
pound Cabinet, and that it shall be peaceful, and even 
permanent. I was at one time on the point of refusing — 
nay, I did refuse, for a time, to hazard myself in the experi- 
ment. But a distracted country appeared before me, and I 
withdrew from that position. I believe that I can endure 
as much as anyone; and maybe I can endure enough to 
make the experiment successful. At all events, I did not 
dare go home or to England, and leave the country to chance." l 

Others, in whom the thought of benefiting those whom 
a wise Providence has put in their charge is not so strong, 
drift less consciously. Impressions affect them more 
easily. They are not so vociferous in proclaiming their 
virtues. But all must justify their actions to themselves. 
The tramp does it, and the bank president, who is laying 
away a snug little sum by means perhaps not altogether 
illegal, does it. 

"Why should I work ? " said a tramp to the writer. "If 
I work, I get only a living. My employer will keep the 
rest of what I produce, and I can get my living without 
working. Besides, I do not help to make others rich." 
Indeed, so human is this need for self-justification that 
men who talk continuously about uplifting others should be 
held under suspicion. They are talking to themselves 
quite as much as to others. They are trying to satisfy 
their consciences. They have not yet reached the stage 
of hypocrisy of which Samuel Butler spoke when he said 
that "no man is a great hypocrite until he has left off 
knowing that he is a hypocrite." 

The environment includes much within its sphere of 
influence. Opinions, for example, are a part of it, and 

1 Life of William H. Seward, by Frederic Bancroft, vol. II, p. 45. (The 
italics are the present writer's.) 



OUR VARYING SELVES 331 

opinions are conspicuously temporal and local; and they 
constitute a by no means insignificant part of the "self " 
of acquaintances as we know them. If one who has always 
been admirably conventional and never indulged in the 
foolish practices of reflection so destructive to authority 
and respectability suddenly becomes an enthusiast for 
reform, he is said to be "beside himself." He has altered 
his personality so completely as to be no longer recogniza- 
ble except through the face that clothes his thoughts. 
But opinions and beliefs are a matter of time and place. 
Like the cut of clothes they are settled by fashion. Some 
time ago the opinion of a large body of respectable men in 
England held that "in a free nation where slaves are not 
allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of 
laborious poor; for, besides that, they are the never- failing 
nursery of fleets and armies, without them there could be 
no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be 
valuable. To make the society happy and people easy 
under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great 
numbers should be ignorant as well as poor. Knowledge 
both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer 
things man wishes for, the more easily his necessity may be 
supplied." 1 

These men probably would not know themselves in their 
antiquated opinions, were they alive to-day; so vital a 
part of one's "self" are one's opinions. Yet men are not 
aware that there is anything peculiar and personal about 
their views. This is a phase of the psychology of the 
"self." One's opinions are so clearly true that they re- 
quire no demonstration. Indeed, as that keen observer of 
human nature, Samuel Butler, once said: "We hold most 
strongly to what we are least capable of demonstrating." 
National customs and tastes offer a further illustration. 
They constitute an integral part of the self even though 
they are shared by one's fellow countrymen. According to 

1 Francis Adams, History of the Elementary School Contest in England, p. 46. 



332 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Robert Louis Stevenson, when the Prince of Wales's mar- 
riage was celebrated in Mentone by a dinner to the Men- 
ton ese, the dishes of the country were pronounced impos- 
sible by the British managers, and the guests were served 
with roast beef and plum-pudding and "no tomfoolery." 

Allied to the alterations in personality through opinions 
are the changes that come from growth and development. 
Children have their peculiarities of self of which adults 
have no knowledge except as it is imparted by a sym- 
pathetic understanding of the ways of childhood. So 
strangely unreal to the mature are the fantastic day-dreams 
of youngsters that they seem like tales from Gulliver's 
Travels when related by Kenneth Grahame and Coningsby 
Dawson. Yet these imaginings make up a large part of 
the selves of children. They live the lives they picture, 
experience the adventures of their fancy, and fear the ter- 
rors conjured up by their instincts and forebodings. 

"Funny thing," said Michael to Chator, in Compton 
Mackenzie's Youth's Encounter, "I have a queer feeling 
just after sunset, a sort of curious dampness inside me. 
Do you ever have it?" 

"I only have it when you start me off," said Chator. 
"But it goes when we sing . . . anything holy." 

"Yes, it does with me," Michael agreed dubiously. 
' f But if I drive it away it comes back in the middle of the 
night. I have all sorts of queer feelings. Sometimes I 
feel as if there wasn't any me at all, and I'm surprised to 
see a letter come addressed to me. But when I see a letter 
I've written, I'm still more surprised. Do you have that 
feeling? Then often I feel as if all we were doing or say- 
ing at a certain moment had been done or said before. 
Then at other times I have to hold on to a tree or hurt 
myself with something just to prove I'm there. And then 
sometimes I think nothing is impossible for me. I feel 
absolutely great as if I were Shakespeare. Do you ever 
have that feeling?" 



OUR VARYING SELVES 333 

This feeling of unreality is not so common with adults, 
but President Wilson is reported to have said, in his ad- 
dress at the National Press Club: "I really feel at times 
as if I were masquerading when I catch a picture of my- 
self in some printed description. In between things that 
I have to do as a public officer, I never think of myself as 
the President of the United States, because I never have 
had any sense of being identified with that office." 

Returning, however, to the feelings of childhood, a 
change comes, not suddenly but gradually. The nervous 
system needs time to develop. Functional connections 
between nerve-centres must be made. It is necessary to 
speak guardedly in ascribing definite changes to the ner- 
vous system as development proceeds, because known 
facts do not justify positive assertions. It is, however, a 
matter of general observation, as well as of scientific knowl- 
edge, that, in animals, growth in complexity of the nervous 
system keeps pace with increase of intelligence. Functional 
response is also elaborated. Animals low in the scale re- 
spond to fewer stimuli, and the excitations are interpreted 
in limited, definite ways. Far down the scale, movement 
in objects means but one thing. It is the stimulus for 
flight. Higher up, with dogs, for example, it may mean 
either to flee or approach, and with man the possible in- 
terpretations are much more numerous. The nervous 
receptors, in the course of evolution, have become adapted 
to one kind of stimulus, but the interpretation of this 
stimulus alters and becomes richer as the child grows into 
the adult. Time for maturation of nerve-elements is evi- 
dently needed. To what extent, if at all, new fibres ap- 
pear after early childhood, is difficult to say. Certain 
investigators 1 seem to have found a new growth at about 
seventeen or eighteen years of age. At any rate, there is 

1 Kaes and Vulpius, Wiener medizinische Wockensckrift, vol. 45, pp. 1734 
and 1770; Miinchener medizinische Wockensckrift, vol. 43, p. 100; Archivfiir 
Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheikn, vol. 23, p. 775. 



334 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

no doubt that new paths are opened and functional con- 
nections established. The nervous system of the boy of 
nine who, when his mother was dressing him in his best 
clothes for a trip on a steamboat, remarked sadly, "I 
thought we were going out to have a good time," is differ- 
ent from that of the same boy at fourteen who, for such 
an excursion, selects his necktie with scrupulous care. 

Sometimes these changes in the self appear to come 
suddenly, but that is because whatever produces the al- 
teration of personality of childhood and youth is going on 
below the surface. Observation usually detects the trans- 
ition, but at times the adequate stimulus which would 
reveal the man in the youth has not been at hand. When, 
under these circumstances, the stimulus is applied abruptly, 
the unexpected reaction is startling both to the actor and 
the one who calls forth the response. Then the break 
seems to be sudden and, in a moment, the child becomes a 
man. Boys who have endured many minor indignities with 
childish submission flare up with the unexpected anger 
and resistance of maturity when the insult passes the limit 
of forbearance. Arnold Bennett gives a good illustration 
in a scene between Edwin and his father, Darius, in Clay- 
hanger. 

" Darius turned on him glaring: 'I'm trying to get at 
where ye got the brass from to buy them three books as 
I saw last night. Where did ye get it from? There's 
nowt wrong here, unless ye're a mighty lot cleverer than 
I take ye for. Where did ye get it from ? Ye don't mean 
to tell me as ye saved it up ! ' 

"Edwin had had some shocks in his life. This was the 
greatest. He could feel his cheeks and his hands growing 
dully hot, and his eyes smarting; and he was suddenly 
animated by an almost murderous hatred and an inexpres- 
sible disgust for his father, who in the grossness of his 
perceptions and his notions had imagined his son to be a 
thief. 'Loathsome beast!' he thought savagely. . . . 



OUR VARYING SELVES 335 

" ' What do you mean by calling me a thief ? ' Edwin and 
Darius were equally startled by this speech. . . . 

"'Let me come out!' Edwin shouted. They were very 
close together. Darius saw that his son's face was all 
drawn. Edwin snatched his hat off its hook, pushed vi- 
olently past his father and, sticking his hands deep into his 
pocket, strode into the street." 

Perhaps it is just as well to pass from early life to its 
close. This is an especially happy method in the present 
instance because a passage from the unfinished autobiog- 
raphy of Robert Louis Stevenson pictures in his inimitable 
way the terminus to which life sweeps us on. The selves 
of childhood and of youth have a common characteristic 
— the wide range of their possibilities, their uncertainty. 
Much is written to interpret the thoughts, emotions, and 
actions of children, but those of old age appear less difficult 
to describe. Probably this is because the course of life 
narrows as the end is approached. The destinations of 
different persons, so far as the characteristics of the self 
are concerned, bear a striking resemblance to one another, 
and, except in rare instances, the same comments would 
give an accurate description of each. Stevenson was not 
an old man at his death, but persistent ill health had 
much the same effect as advanced years. The sketch 
that he draws is the self of an old man touched with the 
quaint humor that the artist did not lose even when too 
weak to finish his drawing. 

"I have the more interest in beginning these memoirs 
where and how I do, because I am living absolutely alone 
in San Francisco, and because from two years of anxiety 
and, according to the doctors, a touch of malaria, I may 
say I am almost changed into another character. After 
weeks in this city, I know only a few neighboring streets; 
I seem to be cured of my adventurous whims, and even of 
human curiosity; and am content to sit here by the fire 
and await the course of fortune. Indeed, I know myself 



336 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

no longer; and as I am changed in heart, I hope I have 
the more chance to look back impartially on all that has 
come and gone heretofore." 1 

People calculate human equations from the conditions 
given in their own selves. This is true of all ages. One's 
ideas and classifications are the known factors and the 
points of departure. Those who hold views that radiate 
from a different centre are ex-centric. The self, with its 
organized beliefs, is so sufficient and compelling that one 
cannot conceive easily of other selves constructed out of 
different thoughts. Either such selves are made out of 
poor material or else they do not exist at all. In the latter 
case one spreads one's own self to cover the ideas and ex- 
periences of others. The best example that I have been 
able to find is an instance related by Nathaniel P. Lang- 
ford in Vigilante Days and Ways. 2 Mr. Langford, in com- 
pany with Samuel T. Hauser, afterward governor of Mon- 
tana, was making a trip from Bannock to Salt Lake City 
in a Mormon ''freighter." To while away the dreary 
monotony of the journey Langford recited to Hauser Mil- 
ton's description of the meeting of Satan and Death at 
the Gates of Hell. The Mormon driver was observed to 
give close attention to the stirring passage, and soon after 
they had camped for the night he was overheard saying 
to a brother teamster: "I tell you, the youngest of those 
men in my wagon, the one that always carries that double- 
barrelled shotgun, is a powerful talker. I heard him 
harangue t'other one today for half an hour, and he 
talked mighty fine. He can overlay Orson Hyde and Par- 
ley Pratt, both, and I rather think it would trouble Brig- 
ham Young to say nicer things. And, after all, he had 
pretty much the same ideas that we have." 

Curious ways the self has ! Strange inconsistencies ! 
Our town or city is so much a part of our selves that, 
though we criticise it severely to one another, we become 

1 The Cornhill Booklet, vol. 4, p. 55. 2 Vol. 2, p. 13. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 2>2>7 

indignant the moment an outsider says anything against 
it. Our friends, also, are a part of our selves. If they 
are not appreciated by others it is a personal matter. 
Indeed, we deny and justify to others the very faults that 
are admitted in private. 

The members of our family, of course, are an integral 
part of our self. And here a curious attitude sometimes 
discloses itself. It is a feeling of resentment and, at times, 
of jealousy at the regard or affection shown by another 
for a son or brother. Of course one wants one's relatives 
appreciated, but intimacy is resented, not infrequently, 
as a curtailment of one's "self." Stranger still, when, 
though the intimacy is unpleasant for social reasons, and 
one is anxious that it cease, denial of affection may, again, 
arouse indignation. It is a reflection on that part of one's 
"self" represented by the members of one's family. For 
how can others fail to share one's own regard? Yet in- 
difference is desired. Galsworthy gives a splendid illus- 
tration in his Country House. 

Mrs. Pendyce was much disturbed over the attention 
which her son George was showing Mrs. Bellew. She was 
sure that Mrs. Bellew was to blame — the other one always 
is — and she called upon her to say that the friendly rela- 
tions must end. But Mrs. Bellew's frank confession that 
she was tired of George and did not love him, was a shock 
and, because of the impossibility of such indifference to 
her son it aroused Mrs. Pendyce's anger. 

"Mrs. Pendyce stammered: 

"'I don't understand.' 

"Mrs. Bellew looked her in the face and smiled; and 
as she smiled she seemed to become a little coarser. 

"'Well, I think it's quite time you did. I don't love 
your son. I did once, but I don't now. I told him so 
yesterday, once for all.' 

"Mrs. Pendyce heard these words, which made so vast, 
so wonderful a difference — words which should have been 



338 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

like water in a wilderness — with a sort of horror, and all 
her spirit flamed up into her eyes. 

"'You don't love him?' she cried. 

"She felt only a blind sense of insult and affront. 

"This woman tire of George! Tire of her son! She 
looked at Mrs. Bellew, on whose face was a kind inquisitive 
compassion, with eyes that had never before held hatred. 

"'You have tired of him? You have given him up? 
Then the sooner I go to him the better ! Give me the ad- 
dress of his rooms, please.'" 

Intentional adoption of a personality for provisional 
effect is, of course, common. Such play-acting multiplies 
the self — at least there exists a real and a seeming self. 
But this stage effect usually involves a partial self-decep- 
tion. Indeed, the ease with which man deceives himself 
is an interesting human trait. By feigning what they are 
not, people come to acquire an assurance of being what 
they assume. They act the part and through deceiving 
themselves think that they deceive others. Pretense of 
youthfulness, for example, by women advanced in years 
is a never-failing source of amusement to those who see 
below the surface of the color-mixture. At times this self- 
deception takes another form, as in the case of a Pittsburg 
congregation whose pastor requested the women to remove 
their hats so as not to obstruct the view of those in the 
rear. Only a few complied. But the pastor, knowing 
something of human psychology, quickly added: "My re- 
quest, of course, does not apply to elderly ladies. I hope, 
however, that the young women will do me the favor." 
In a moment every woman in the church had removed her 
hat. 

This adoption of a make-believe personality originates 
in the human belief that others do not see what one tries 
to hide from oneself. But it is interesting to observe that 
it is also an adaptation to the tendency to accept a man 
at his face value — at his own appraisal of himself. This 



OUR VARYING SELVES 339 

is true, of course, only of certain individuals. It depends 
upon the skill with which the man carries the part. Either 
he must be thoroughly convinced that he is the character 
which he assumes or else he must be a consummate actor. 
Suggestion plays its part here, and the carrying power of 
a suggestion is largely determined by the confidence and 
self-assurance of the performer. Nevertheless, the number 
who succeed is sufficiently large to establish a rule of ac- 
tion for social and business charlatans. The ease with 
which bankers are deceived by personal appearance and 
demeanor is often a matter of comment. Yet it is a part 
of their training to assume that a stranger is not what he 
represents himself to be. 

Which is the true self in this contest of personalities? 
It is not always easy to say. The more worldly self, when 
in power, gloats over its conquests, and the more spiritual, 
in turn, laments its weakness. A man may have failed to 
realize his higher aspirations and have yielded to the lower 
impulses in his efforts to get on in the world. Every one 
knows of ambulance-chasers and quacks who started out 
with good intentions. Conversation with a number of 
these has convinced the writer that some of them, at any 
rate, are not altogether at peace of mind. A view of the 
reverse side of the picture is not so easily obtained, because 
it is much easier to fall than to rise, but a number of years 
ago a physician began deliberately as an advertising quack, 
became disgusted with himself, dropped his work, gradu- 
ated from a high-grade medical school, and is now one of 
the leading surgeons of his State. 

We have been trying to discover the motives underlying 
variations of the self — to indicate a few of the explanatory 
influences, and we have found them numerous and, in 
many instances, obscure. Man seems to be a reservoir of 
possibilities that is drawn upon by the environment. Of 
course every one has his individual limitations, but within 
his range the combination of qualities that make him what 



340 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

he is seems countless. "I think thoughts worth while 
when in his presence," is not an uncommon remark of 
those who usually think in terms of conventional ecstasy. 
In society it is difficult to recognize the stern man of affairs 
or the thoughtful moralist. All of what a recent writer 
has called "instinctive idiocies" comes to the surface. 
Here the philosopher revels in verbal luxury, and the man 
who, among the thoughtful, is noted for the prominence 
of his imperceptions draws on the unearned increment of 
his reputation. Among roues, on the other hand, many a 
man soaked in respectability and yellow with the golden 
pollen of countless virtues becomes one of "the boys." 
His moral principles, swollen almost to bursting, are tem- 
porarily laid aside to be brought out again at a favorable 
juncture of the stars, when they will win creditable admira- 
tion. 

We have been considering the varying selves as they 
occur in every-day life. An instance has recently been 
made known, however, that is of special interest because 
it is on the border-line between the normal variations com- 
monly observed and the abnormal. William Sharp's two 
selves have been described in the absorbingly interesting 
book by his wife. 1 The condition is unusual for adults, 
but in no other sense abnormal; and the vivid reality of 
his second self is not uncommon in children. 2 

With William Sharp, the moral or intellectual revolt 
which we have observed in some of the other cases did not 
exist. His other self was rather the cry of hunger from a 
starved soul. How real this alternating personality was 
may be gathered from a letter of Mr. Yeats. 3 "Fiona 
Macleod was a secondary personality — as distinct a sec- 
ondary personality as those one reads about in books of 
psychical research. At times he (W. S.) was really to all 
intents and purposes a different being." He would "come 

1 William Sharp : A Memoir, by Elizabeth Sharp. 

1 See Una Mary, by Una Hunt. 3 Quoted by Mrs. Sharp. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 341 

and sit down by my fireside and talk, and I believe that 
when 'Fiona Macleod' left the house he would have no 
recollection of what he had been saying to me." 

The vivid earnestness of Fiona evidently led Mr. Yeats 
into the error of thinking that amnesia existed between the 
two personalities. As a matter of fact this is not neces- 
sary even in abnormal cases. "It is true, as I have said," 
writes his wife, "that William Sharp seemed a different 
person when the Fiona mood was on him; but that he had 
no recollection of what was said in that mood was not the 
case. That he did not understand it, is true. For that 
mood could not be commanded at will. Different influ- 
ences awakened it, and its duration depended largely on 
environment. *W. S.' could set himself deliberately to 
work normally, and was, so far, master of his mind. But 
for the expression of the *F. M.' self he had to wait upon 
mood, or seek conditions to induce it." 

This was not an attempt on the part of Sharp to write 
on different topics. Fiona Macleod was not a pseudonym. 
She was a personality. "My truest self," he wrote in a 
letter, "the self who is below all other selves, and my most 
intimate life and joys and sufferings, thoughts, emotions 
and dreams, must rind expression, yet can not, save in this 
hidden way." The Sharp personality seems to have been 
an unnatural growth forced to develop by severe economic 
conditions. William Sharp's style was calm, uninspired, 
critical, prosy; while Fiona Macleod wrote poetic prose 
in an extremely imaginative style. Descriptions of nature, 
full of color, with spiritual phrases, abound. Her themes 
were the life, customs, and superstitions of the Highlands, 
while Sharp wrote chiefly biographies and reviews. 

From the time when "he stilled the critical, intellectual 
mood of William Sharp to give play to the development of 
this new-found expression of subtler emotions, toward which 
he had been moving with all the ardor of his nature . . . 
there was a continual play of the two forces in him, or of 



342 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the two sides of his nature : of the intellectually observant, 
reasoning mind — the actor, and of the intuitively obser- 
vant, spiritual mind — the dreamer, which differentiated 
more and more one from the other, and required different 
conditions, different environment, different stimuli, until he 
seemed to be two personalities in one. . . . He was wont 
to say: 'Should the secret be found out, Fiona dies.'" 

Fiona seems to have had a life of growth and develop- 
ment altogether independent of William Sharp, passing, 
as Mrs. Sharp puts it, from youth in Pharais and The 
Mountain Lovers through maturity in The Barbaric Tales 
and Tragic Romances "to the greater serenity of later con- 
templative life in The Divine Adventure, The Winged Des- 
tiny, and Where the Forest Murmurs." At one time he 
wrote: "Sometimes I am tempted to believe I am half a 
woman." 

But each of his two natures had its own needs, desires, 
interests, and friends. For a time there was such opposi- 
tion between them that it was difficult for him to adjust 
his life to the two conditions which were equally impera- 
tive in their demands. "His preference, naturally, was 
for the intimate creative work which he knew grew out of 
his inner self; though the exigencies of life, his dependence 
on his pen for his livelihood — and, moreover, the keen, 
active interest 'William Sharp' took in all the movements 
of the day, literary and political, at home and abroad — ■ 
required of him a great amount of applied study and 
work. . . . The needs of each were not always harmonious 
one with the other, but created a complex condition that 
led to a severe nervous collapse." 

If we look for the source of this dual personality in Sharp, 
we find its beginning, at any rate, in early childhood. 
He was an extremely imaginative child, but he was also 
a real boy who loved the activities and adventures that 
appeal to boys. "About the dream and vision side of his 
life," his biographer says, "he learned early to be silent. 



OUR VARYING SELVES 343 

He soon realized that his playmates understood nothing 
of the confused memories of previous lives that haunted 
him, and from which he drew materials to weave into 
stories for his schoolfellows in the dormitory at night. 
To his surprise he found they saw none of the denizens of 
the other worlds— tree spirits and nature spirits, great and 
small — so familiar to him, and who he imagined must be 
as obvious to others as to himself." 

"In surveying the dual life as a whole," says his wife, 
"I have seen how from the early partially realized twin- 
ship, e W. S.' was the first to go adventuring and find him- 
self, while his twin 'F. M.' remained passive, or a separate 
self. When 'she' awoke to active consciousness 'she' 
became the deeper, the more impelling, the more essential 
factor. By reason of this severance, and of the acute 
conflict that resulted therefrom, the flaming of the dual 
life became so fierce that 'Wilfion' — as I named the inner 
and third self that lay behind that dual expression — re- 
alized the imperativeness of getting control over his two 
separated selves and of bringing them into some kind of 
conscious harmony." 

Yet, notwithstanding this conflict, each personality was 
complete in itself. Each preserved its own peculiar char- 
acteristics. There was no interference or confusion; no 
exchange or overlapping of natures. This consistency of 
Fiona Macleod is important. It is what makes her a per- 
sonality. Consistency in matters necessary for identifica- 
tion may be assumed and maintained for a short time. 
But it finally breaks down. There have been fairly well- 
authenticated instances of the substitution of a spurious 
"long-lost" son, who played his part successfully for a 
brief period. A somewhat similar deception is illustrated 
by men who seek to justify a reprehensible act when they 
have had time to prepare their defense, and also by false 
alibis. But in all such cases something is forgotten; the 
stories do not fit, and inconsistencies are soon discovered. 



344 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

It is impossible to feign successfully what one is not, to 
play intentionally the part of two widely varying charac- 
ters. Habits of thought and action are too controlling, 
too compelling. A man cannot be constantly alert. The 
strain on the attention is too great, and it lapses before 
he is aware of the change. So one is unable to be con- 
tinuously mindful of what one says and does. Impostors 
are surprised out of their security. Though it is a well- 
known method of lawyers to lead a witness peacefully 
along until he feels mentally comfortable, the attention 
meanwhile losing its edge through adaptation to the feel- 
ing of satisfaction with the answers, and then suddenly, 
when he is off his guard, to spring a question, the plan 
usually succeeds. In the more common matters of life 
this variation in the efficiency of attention is observed in 
the difficulties of conversation when one wishes to make a 
good impression. How often one makes remarks which 
one would gladly recall. The usual excuse is that we were 
not "ourselves." The very attempt to produce a favorable 
effect is disturbing. It is like walking. What does not 
follow automatically reveals its awkwardness. Some one 
has said that nothing can replace wisdom, though silence 
is the best substitute. But in playing a part one cannot 
be always silent. 

The consistency of "Fiona Macleod," then, is the most 
important bit of evidence in establishing her claim to per- 
sonality. Her interests, her feelings and emotions, her 
thoughts and style are too diametrically opposed to those 
of Sharp to permit the assumption of intentional adop- 
tion. His early topics and mode of treatment were the 
surface response to the demands of the reading public as 
he interpretated them. Dependent, as he was, upon his 
pen, literary criticism, for which he had taste and talent, 
offered the quickest and surest way of earning a living. 
But there was a deeper self, a personality suppressed for 
a time by his economic and social conditions. Had this 



OUR VARYING SELVES 345 

submerged self been less real, less vital, it might never 
have risen to the surface. But it was more truly himself 
than the austere critic that represented William Sharp. So 
it asserted itself and finally became the controlling force 
of his life. That memory, at times, seemed almost dis- 
continuous indicates that we have here a border-line case 
between the common variations in the self and the condi- 
tion of double personality which is so far from the line as 
to be called abnormal. 

Returning now to the more common alterations of 
the self, the illustrations have disclosed startling varia- 
tions in the character and purposes of the same individual. 
There is always rivalry and conflict between the different 
selves. Now one gains control, and now the other. It is 
not always possible to say which line of conduct most truly 
represents the man. In some it is the baser acts, and the 
nobler deeds are done with conscious purpose to maintain 
a social position. Fortunately, such men are rare. Most 
people have good intentions, and their failures are due to 
moral weakness influenced by social or psychological causes. 
Man desires, at least, a satisfying unity in his life. Every 
one likes to feel that he is true to his ideals; and the strug- 
gle to secure this feeling is seen in the excuses which are 
made for deviation from the higher code of action. Con- 
sequently, man is prone to deceive himself with the convic- 
tion that his acts are justifiable because others do them, or 
because they will enable him to do counterbalancing good 
in other ways, or else he drifts and finds excuses afterward. 
These by no means exhaust the categories. Man's actions 
are exceedingly complex, as much more complex than those 
of the lower animals as is his nervous system, and for just 
that reason. 

The action of animals is usually predictable. It always 
is to one who knows their ways. They are severely con- 
sistent. Inconsistency, curiously enough, comes with de- 
velopment, at least with a certain stage of development. 



346 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

Perhaps this is due to the fact that development means, 
among other things, multiplying ways of reacting to what 
is superficially the same situation. Man sees a greater 
number of possible reactions — more ways of behaving — 
with reference to external situations than do the lower 
animals. Primitive man, also, was consistent until he 
learned inconsistency from contact with his civilized 
teacher. The larger number of possible responses are con- 
fusing. Putting them in order requires the organization 
of information and moral principles, as well as insight into 
the effect of acts; and thinking in terms of cause and effect 
is a comparatively new instrument of behavior. 

The man of good intentions, however, who yields to 
moral weakness has moments of keen remorse. But the 
effect is momentary. He repents and sins again. Some 
people have the repentance habit. They gain a certain 
solace and even joy from the excitement. It is a sort of 
emotional debauchery in which they indulge periodically, 
just as others drown their sorrow in drink. This is one 
of the ways in which the emotions ooze out ineffectually 
instead of producing action which is the phylogenetic 
justification for their existence. In time, inaction, with 
such people, becomes a fixed mode of behavior. They are 
continually making resolutions which are never carried 
out. 

This feeling of remorse easily leads to the self-deception 
to which, as we have said, man is prone. He is much 
more naive in this than are those who observe him. He 
does not know that he is practising self-deception though 
he may have observed this trait in others. This, again, 
is human — seeing quite clearly in acquaintances what one 
does not discover in oneself, though it may be patent to 
all the rest of the world. It illustrates a certain human 
blindness. 

Finally, there should be a selection of the self to which 
we yield submission. "Not that I would not, if I could," 



OUR VARYING SELVES 347 

says James, "be both handsome and fat and well dressed, 
and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, 
a bon vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; 
a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, 
as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is im- 
possible. The millionaire's work would run counter to 
the saint's; the bon vivant and the philanthropist would 
trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer 
could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay." 
One or the other will finally dominate. The question is, 
Which? 



CHAPTER X 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 

"It looks so good that it makes my mouth water" is a 
common saying; and it is not merely a figure of speech. 
The mouth actually does water at the sight of appetizing 
food. That is, the flow of saliva begins. Now, since the 
food has not been tasted the cause of this flow must be 
altogether different from that which stimulates secretion 
when food is actually eaten. Evidently, the mind is at 
work here, with its expectation of approaching pleasure; 
and this anticipation is one of the psychical contributions 
to digestion. Its effect, in the feeling of the mouth when 
appetizing food is offered, is a matter of common experi- 
ence. It is not so generally known, however, that visions 
of pleasant eating also make the stomach "water." 

As long ago as 1852 two investigators 1 noticed that the 
sight and smell of food started gastric secretion in the 
stomach of a hungry dog, and twenty-six years later Richet 
reported 2 evidence of a generous flow of gastric juice in 
one of his patients when such substances as sugar or lemon- 
juice were chewed or tasted, though the act of swallowing 
could not be completed on account of a closed oesophagus. 
But the importance of these observations was not under- 
stood at the time, and the investigations were unproductive. 
More recently, however, a Russian physiologist, Pavlov, 
repeated the experiments on dogs, under improved condi- 
tions, and demonstrated the significance for digestion of the 
psychical factor, desire or appetite. 

1 F. Bidder and C. Schmidt, Die Verdauungssafie und der Stoffwechsel, 
Leipzig, 1852. 

2 Journal de V Anatomic et de la Physiologie, vol. 14, p. 170. 

348 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 349 

But let us begin with the first stage of digestion, namely, 
with the saliva, and see what this mental co-operation 
means. Of course when food, and especially dry food, 
is put into the mouth saliva begins to flow. The advan- 
tage of this is to moisten the food and render easier the act 
of swallowing. Animals deprived of the parotid saliva 
swallow dry food only with the greatest difficulty. In 
addition, the saliva dissolves the soluble constituents of 
food, making them perceptible to the nerves of taste, and, 
in certain articles of diet, it starts the digestive process. 
Now Pavlov has shown experimentally that it is not 
necessary for food to be put into the mouth to excite the 
salivary reflex. All that is needed with a hungry dog is 
to direct his attention to the food. Then the saliva begins 
to flow. As might be expected, the success of the experi- 
ment depends upon the anticipation elicited by the sight 
of what is offered. If the animal has found from past ex- 
perience that it tastes good, the glands begin at once to 
pour out their secretion abundantly. On the other hand, 
if previous experience has shown that the substance offered 
will not taste good, no saliva is secreted. "In the course 
of our experiments," says Pavlov, 1 "it appeared that all 
the phenomena of adaptation which we saw in the salivary 
glands under physiological conditions, such, for instance, 
as the introduction of the stimulating substances into the 
buccal cavity, reappeared in exactly the same manner 
under the influence of psychological conditions — that is to 
say, when we merely drew the animal's attention to the 
substances in question. Thus, when we pretended to throw 
pebbles into the dog's mouth, or to cast in sand, or to pour 
in something disagreeable, or, finally, when we offered it 
this or that kind of food, a secretion either immediately 
appeared or it did not appear, in accordance with the 
properties of the substance which we had previously seen 

1 The Work of the Digestive Glands, translated by W. H. Thompson, 1910, 
p. 152. 



3 So PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

to regulate the quantity and nature of the juice when 
physiologically excited to flow." In other words, expecta- 
tion of a pleasant taste plays an important role in promot- 
ing the flow of saliva and, consequently, in furthering all 
of the phases of digestion with which saliva is concerned. 

But anticipation reaches far beyond the sight or smell 
of pleasant food. The food itself need not be present. 
Anything that is regularly connected with it at an enjoy- 
able meal will be sufficient to stimulate the reflex. What- 
ever has been associated with the substances that physi- 
ologically excite the salivary secretion may arouse it 
psychologically. The attendant who feeds the animals, his 
footsteps, taking the dog into the room where he is wont 
to be fed, the vessel usually containing the food, and the 
furniture of the room, any one of these will be sufficient 
to produce the flow. Curiously enough, substances which 
stimulate the reflex in a purely mechanical way, irrespec- 
tive of enjoyment, have the same effect — the sight of the 
bottle containing the acid that starts the secretion me- 
chanically, for example. If the acid is dark, then water 
in the bottle of the same color as the acid will produce a 
like effect. 1 Since it is the color that exerts the influence, 
dogs, according to Pavlov, distinguish certain colors. If an 
illuminated circle be shown with food the circle alone will 
finally excite the reflex. Since an illuminated quadrilat- 
eral does not have this effect, dogs appear to distinguish 
between these figures. "If a definite musical note be re- 
peatedly sounded in conjunction with the exhibition of 
meat-powder, after a time the sound of the note alone is 
effective. Similarly with the exhibition of a brilliant 
color." 2 Since a difference of a quarter of a tone produces 
no result, the dog seems to make this distinction. Indeed, 

1 A. Meisl, Journal fiir Psychologie und Neurologie, vol. 6, p. 192; Wien. kl. 
Rundschau, vol. 17, p. 375. W. Nicolai, Journal fur Psychologie und Neu- 
rologie, vol. 10, p. 1. 

2 Pavlov, op. cit., p. 85. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 351 

Pavlov found that this animal can be so trained that his 
salivary glands will respond to any excitation by associating 
the stimulus with food that gives pleasure when eaten. 
"Any ocular stimulus, any desired sound, any odor that 
might be selected, and the stimulation of any part of the 
skin, either by mechanical means or by the application of 
heat or cold, have in our hands never failed to stimulate the 
salivary glands, although they were all of them at one time 
supposed to be insufficient for such a purpose. This was 
accomplished by applying these stimuli simultaneously 
with the action of the salivary glands, this action having 
been evolved by giving certain kinds of food, or by forcing 
certain substances into the dog's mouth." x 

In considering the "psychic" flow of saliva — which means 
its secretion before the food is actually tasted — we must 
remember that it occurs only by reason of association with 
the physiological response. The latter has its explanation 
in the evolutionary biological history of the species or 
race. The psychological reaction occurs because of a 
relationship established between the excitation of the sal- 
ivary reflex and certain definite perceptions. These per- 
ceptions finally come to represent the cause of the ex- 
citation. This connection between the salivary reflex 
and objects wholly unessential to gratification of the ap- 
petite, as, for example, a musical note, is a temporary asso- 
ciation. It was formed by the simultaneous occurrence 
of, first, a taste so pleasant as to excite the salivary reflex, 
and, second, of another perception wholly unessential to 
the satisfying quality of the first, but nevertheless made 
into an integral part of it by the conjunction in time of 
the two perceptions. Repetition of these simultaneous 
perceptions strengthens the union between them and soon 
the sign is identical with the food. An unessential, per- 
haps wholly accidental, property of the object has thus 

1 Ergebnisse der Physiologic, vol. 3, 1904, 1 Abteil, p. 177. Huxley Lec- 
ture, British Medical Journal, 1906, vol. 2, p. 871. 



352 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

become, so far as the animal is concerned, the object it- 
self. The visual, auditory, or olfactory perception of these 
accidental qualities of substances pleasant to the taste in- 
fluences the salivary centre through the various and cir- 
cuitous nerve-paths which lead from the several sense- 
organs. Undoubtedly, these perceptions reinforce one 
another with a strength approximately proportional to 
their associative bond. "It would appear," Pavlov thinks, 
"as if the salivary centre, when thrown into action by the 
simple reflex, becomes a point of attraction for influences 
from all organs and regions of the body specifically excited 
by other qualities of the object. . . . The establishment 
in this way of temporary relationship between external 
objects and important life processes, as well as the ease 
with which they are lost, are matters of very considerable 
value to the organism. By such means functional activity 
is better adapted to the surrounding conditions, while, on 
the other hand, readjustment is readily permitted when the 
conditions alter." x 

Illustrations of the way in which these associations aid 
functional activity and promote the adjustment of the 
animals to their surroundings readily suggest themselves. 
The association of food with a region, the connection in 
this case being between the food and what may be called 
the furnishings of the country — the trees, contour of the 
land, etc. — and association of the locality with the call of 
food-animals are cases in point. In the same way danger 
may be associated with a given territory. As before, the 
association may be based upon the characteristics of the 
region, or upon one or more animals which are feared. 
Avoidance of delicious bits in traps because of incidental 
connection with odors of human hands, or with certain 
appearances, offers illustrations of olfactory and visual 
associations. Trappers seek to avoid such associations by 
removing odors, and by giving the location of their traps 

1 Op. cit., p. 86. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 353 

a natural look with shrubbery and other devices. This 
repellent association may even exist between a favorite 
food-animal and a certain region, thereby serving as a 
protection during a transitory period. As an instance of 
readjustment, this condition may be a passing phase due 
to the temporary presence or hostility of dangerous animals, 
as of man. When the cause of avoiding the region is re- 
moved, as in the closed season, the animals in whom the 
repellent association existed return. This is seen to-day, 
again, when deer, squirrels, and other animals desert a 
section of country, but return later after man has come 
to find pleasure in their presence instead of hunting and 
killing them. 

It may be well, in passing, to observe that these associa- 
tions of which we have been speaking — chance connections 
between objects or qualities of objects — are fundamentally 
of the same sort as perverted associations. In the latter 
case perceptions are overemphasized and applied indis- 
criminately. The feeling for proportion is lost. When 
carried over into the realm of thought, these incidental 
and accidental associations may establish habit-psychoses 
the periodic recurrence of which produces obsessions, 
which are meaningless except in the overwrought mental 
complex of their possessor. From these "imperative" or 
"fixed" ideas arises that state of mind which character- 
izes fanatics — the men who seek to square the circle or to 
cure all social ills by their own special brand of religious 
elixir. It should be added that fanaticism is a matter of 
degree. To the extent to which a man ties himself to one 
idea and allows it to become "fixed," he approaches fanati- 
cism. When the idea becomes dominant such a person 
sees the world of thought in a perverted form because his 
ruling idea is always the centre of reference, and no one 
idea, however much truth it may contain, can house the 
explanation of any human problem. Human behavior — 
and consequently the world of action — is too complex for so 



354 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

simple a solution. The "fixed" idea prevents its possessor 
from understanding other ideas because thought relation- 
ships are disturbed. In the past, religion has admittedly 
furnished the largest number of this particular aberrant 
type, but to-day anti-vivisectionists, anti-inoculationists, 
and pacifists, to mention only a few, indicate a rather 
alarming widening of the range of association-psychoses. 

These associations, like those of which we have been 
speaking in the lower animals, are incidental in the sense 
that they are not a necessary part of the conditions or cir- 
cumstances. If they arouse agitating emotions they in- 
terrupt certain physiological processes in the same way as 
we shall find anger or fear does when an animal faces op- 
position or danger. Anything which prevents a person 
from seeing things in their right proportion disturbs diges- 
tion to the extent to which it brings him in conflict with 
others less insane than himself. Only that serenity in 
error which admits no doubts, and consequently allows no 
conflict, is compatible with a healthy digestion. Conse- 
quently, if one is to contend one should be quite certain 
that the argument is worth gastric disturbance. In any 
individual case, however, this decision revolves on the 
"imperative" idea, and so the vicious circle continues its 
satisfied whirl. But to return to our theme. 

We have seen that anticipation of an enjoyable meal 
not only excites the salivary glands to action, but that 
this expectation of pleasure is carried over to whatever is 
associated with the food that promises pleasure. On the 
other hand, the reflex does not respond to food or other 
substances which do not awaken expectations of enjoyable 
sensations. Evidently, this physiological process is not 
purely mechanical. It is not set off by merely putting 
something into the mouth. Even food does not always 
accomplish the complete result. It depends on the atti- 
tude of the animal or man toward the food. A mental 
factor is involved. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 355 

But in addition to the inertness of certain substances, 
which may or may not be food, interference with the secre- 
tion of saliva may also be set up. It has long been known 
that in certain mental states the saliva refuses to flow. 
The dry mouth of the inexperienced public speaker during 
the "watchful waiting" to hear his name called is an illus- 
tration. This psychological effect of suspense has been 
utilized by primitive people as a test of guilt. In India 
those suspected of a crime were compelled to chew conse- 
crated rice for a short time, and then to eject it for judicial 
examination. The one who ejected it dry was declared 
guilty. As in many other primitive ordeals and ceremonies 
the gods received credit for a psychological principle which 
has slowly proved itself in the experience of the race. 
Anxiety, worry, fear, and anger, all stop the secretion of 
saliva. If an angry person at dinner will turn psychological 
investigator for a moment he will notice how difficult it is 
to swallow his food. It is too dry. In fear, again, one of 
the physical characteristics is a parched mouth and throat. 
It is clear then that the mental state profoundly influences 
the secretion of saliva. There are, however, interferences 
of another sort. 

At the sight of bread the salivary reflex is excited. 
Now, however, after a generous flow has started, Pavlov 
observed that if flesh is shown to the dog the secretion of 
saliva ceases. The sight of flesh has, in some way, inhib- 
ited the salivary response to bread. It is not merely the 
greater desire of the dog for flesh that causes the inhibi- 
tion, for the secretion started at the sight of bread is also 
quickly stopped if the animal sees another dog eating the 
same food. It is impossible to be very definite in account- 
ing for this inhibition. The explanation must be by anal- 
ogy, which is never quite satisfactory. We know that, at 
a given moment, only a certain amount of nervous energy 
is available, and that the nerve impulses are likely to take 
the line of greatest activity, which for the time is the 



356 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

path of least resistance. In both of these cases a motor 
centre is excited. This is shown in the first instance by 
the vigorous efforts to obtain the flesh, and in the second, 
by the efforts to reach the other dog and take the bread 
from him. Action, therefore, is paramount, and the ner- 
vous impulses are directed toward making it as vigorous 
and efficient as possible. It is much the same as when an 
animal fights or flees. All of the available energy is di- 
rected to vigorous muscular activity. Digestion, and 
glandular action concerned with it, must wait. The mus- 
cles call for blood and nervous energy that they may per- 
form their function. In an emergency the organs needed 
to meet the situation are the ones that the blood and 
nervous discharges hurry to assist, and so other bodily 
activities yield to their demand. Consequently, other 
organs are drained. The muscles, directed by the motor 
area, are the centre of influence, and reflex reactions which 
contribute nothing to their strength or skill are delayed. 

Briefly summarizing the results of these investigations, 
experiments have shown that the salivary reflex is set in 
motion by a psychical factor. The anticipated pleasure 
of the meal presses the button that starts the physiological 
machinery. Enjoyable surroundings promote this plea- 
sure by creating a mental attitude of expectancy; and when 
once the appetite flow begins the physiological processes 
continue the secretory activity with increasing vigor. 
But interferences may occur to delay or inhibit the process. 

We turn now to the psychic effect upon the flow of gas- 
tric juice. Pavlov divided the oesophagus of a dog and 
exposed the two ends. An opening was then made into the 
stomach. The dog could now be fed either through the 
neck opening of the oesophagus leading into the stomach, 
and still connected with it, or through the direct opening 
into the stomach (gastric fistula). It could also be fed as 
usual through the mouth, but when this food was swallowed 
it fell out of the exposed end of the oesophagus in the neck 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 357 

instead of passing into the stomach. In this way all the 
pleasures of eating could be experienced and their effect 
upon the flow of gastric juice accurately determined. 
Since the food taken through the mouth did not reach the 
stomach, whatever gastric juice appeared would be the 
result of psychic influences alone. The effect of this 
"sham feeding," the pleasant sensations of the enjoyable 
taste, are evidently transmitted to the gastric glands by 
nerve-paths. "Sham feeding" has the advantage also of 
never satisfying the animal. He can go on eating indefi- 
nitely without feeling "full." So the persistence of the 
psychic effect can be measured. One dog continued eat- 
ing for five or six hours, enjoying every minute of the 
period, and in that time 700 c.c. of the purest gastric juice 
were secreted, though not a particle of food had reached 
the stomach. This dog was contented and happy. In- 
deed, the comfortable feeling that comes from well-being 
is essential to the success of the experiments, and some of 
the dogs lived in ease and comfort for several years. 

Pavlov also produced a miniature stomach, a cul-de-sac, 
at the cardiac end of the stomach, and proved that the 
gastric juice secreted in this small stomach was in all re- 
spects representative of that produced in the entire organ. 
He was thus enabled to estimate quite accurately the quan- 
tity and quality of gastric juice secreted as the result of 
different methods of feeding. He observed further the 
changes produced in the gastric juice by varying sorts of 
food. All of these experiments included, among other in- 
fluences, the appetite — a psychic factor. 

When Pavlov fed a dog with divided oesophagus through 
the mouth he ate greedily but, of course, the food that he 
swallowed passed out at the opening in the neck. Yet 
pure gastric juice at once made its appearance and steadily 
increased in quantity, continuing to flow as long as the 
animal was "fed." This secretion produced by psychic 
influences Pavlov called "psychic" or "appetite" juice. 



358 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

The stimulation of the nerves of the gastric glands by 
the act of chewing and swallowing depends then, to a large 
extent, upon a psychic factor which starts a physiological 
process. The physiological activity underlying digestion 
is thus shown to be a very complex reflex act, involving the 
co-operation of a number of organic processes, some of 
which are psychological. The dog with divided oesophagus 
not only imagines that he is eating food, but, so far as he 
knows, he actually eats it. There is no disappointment 
in what he is doing because the food tastes good, and he 
swallows it. So he eats greedily, and the gastric juice 
flows abundantly. 

The evolutionary significance of this is clear. Getting 
food is not merely a physiological matter. Desire, antici- 
pation, selection, judgment, and the will to obtain, all 
play their role. As with the salivary glands, the first and 
strongest excitation for the gastric reflex is the sight, or 
smell, and then the taste. As an illustration, one of Pav- 
lov's dogs was excited by showing him meat for an hour 
and a half. He was then given a sham meal. The gastric 
secretion obtained during the hour and a half sight of the 
meat was somewhat greater than that produced by sham 
feeding. 

Taste, however, is of immense importance for gastric 
secretion. Consequently, emotional states stimulating to 
the salivary reflex should prevail at meals, for food can be 
tasted only when dissolved in the mouth. Only by this 
means can it be brought in solution into contact with the 
taste organs. The pleasant taste increases the effect of 
the agreeable feelings aroused by the sight of the food. 
Either sight or taste may start the "psychic" juice, but 
both together will greatly enlarge the flow. Emotional 
disturbances, on the other hand, that inhibit the salivary 
reflex check the gastric secretion indirectly by blunting 
the taste. The effect is, therefore, cumulative from both 
points of view. The emotional conditions unite both re- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 359 

flexes, in the one case to aid digestion, and, in the other, to 
check or stop the process. 

Delicate response to stimulation of those organs that 
sense from a distance is not sufficient for the preservation 
of the species. There must be some point to the response, 
something that gives it meaning in relation to the organism, 
something that drives the animal irresistibly in pursuit of 
that which promises pleasure to the taste. And this im- 
pulse is the craving of a hungry animal for food. The 
psychical aspect of this longing is the desire and expecta- 
tion awakened through the excitation of the distance re- 
ceptors, and joined with this anticipation is the physiologi- 
cal preparation of the stomach to receive the food — the 
reflex response of the gastric glands. "Thus appetite," 
as Pavlov says, "so important to life and so full of mystery 
to science, here at length assumes a tangible existence, 
and becomes transformed from a subjective sensation into a 
concrete factor within reach of physiological investigation." 

We found in discussing the psychical response of the 
salivary reflex that any object or action regularly con- 
nected with obtaining pleasant-tasting food is soon asso- 
ciated in the mind of the animal with the meal itself. The 
same observation was made on the secretion of gastric 
juice. If the dog was hungry the appearance of the at- 
tendant, even his footsteps, and any movement that he 
was wont to make when giving food, were sufficient to 
excite the gastric glands. 

Pavlov's observations on dogs have been verified by 
several investigators 1 on human beings, at least so far as 
the effect of tasting pleasant substances is concerned. 
Carlson, however, found 2 a relatively slight and incon- 

1 Adolf Bickel and K. Sasaki, Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, vol. 31, 
p. 1829. A. Cade et A. Latarjet, Journal de Physiologie et Pathologie General, 
vol. 7, p. 221. A. F. Hornborg, Skandinavisches Archiv fur Physiologie, 
vol. 15, p. 209. 

2 The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease, by Anton Julius Carlson, 
PP- 237/- 



360 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

stant secretion from merely seeing, smelling, or thinking 
of food in the man with whom he experimented. But 
Pavlov observed great variation in this respect in his dogs 
and, as Carlson suggests, the man whom he himself tested 
may belong "to the group of individuals in whom the taste 
of food is the all-important factor in the psychic secre- 
tion of gastric juice." There is, however, another element 
which must not be overlooked, and which may account 
for the failure of Carlson's man to secrete gastric juice at 
the sight and smell of food. As we shall see, the psychic- 
secretory mechanism is especially sensitive to inhibitory 
influences, and it is quite possible that the routine collec- 
tion of the juice may, by the very disagreeableness of the 
experimental procedure and irritation at delay, set up in- 
hibitory processes. Carlson himself suggests this in the 
case of his patient. "It is probable," he says, "that under 
these conditions the primary and normal effects of seeing 
and smelling the food are inhibited by the consciousness 
of the experiment, or possibly his main interest was not 
in the food, but the expiration of the experiment, so that 
he might partake of the food." Psychic influence is em- 
phasized by Carlson in explaining the findings of several 
investigators, which he was unable to confirm. In referring 
to the observations of Kaznelson and Bickel, for example, 
that any olfactory stimulation induced secretion of gastric 
juice in the resting stomach, he says: "It is possible that 
in this young woman every gustatory and olfactory stimulus 
when manipulated by the investigators led to thoughts of 
food through idea associations." l Among the confirma- 
tory evidence of the influence of thinking about eating is 
the observation of Cade and Latarjet 2 that gastric juice was 
secreted in a young woman when her favorite food was the 
subject of conversation. 

Whatever individual differences there may be in the 
effect of thinking about food, there is very general agree- 

1 Op. cit., p. 239. * Op. cit. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 361 

ment regarding the influence of taste. Gastric juice was 
secreted in the stomach of a boy who came under Horn- 
borg's care when he chewed agreeable food, but rubber 
brought no secretory response. This has been verified by 
Carlson. "The mere act of chewing indifferent substances 
and the stimulation of nerve-endings in the mouth by 
substances other than those directly related to food cause 
no secretion of gastric juice." * Evidently, it is a matter 
of taste and enjoyment, and not merely of having some- 
thing in the mouth or of chewing. Carlson found that 
"the secretion is proportional to the palatability of the 
food"; and he is of the opinion that "the significant appe- 
tite secretion in man is that induced by tasting and chew- 
ing good food." 

In man, then, as in the lower animals investigated, 
the pleasurable sensations caused by the smell, taste, or 
thought of enjoyable food serve as a stimulus to the gas- 
tric reflex. We are therefore justified in saying with 
Pavlov "that appetite is the first and most potent exciter 
of the secretory nerves of the stomach, a factor which em- 
bodies in itself something able to compel the empty stomach 
of the dog during the fictitious meal to secrete large quanti- 
ties of the strongest juice. A good appetite in eating gives 
origin at the outset to a vigorous secretion of the most 
active juice; where there is no appetite this is absent." 

We cannot, however, agree with Pavlov when he says 
that "to restore appetite to a man means to provide him 
with a large stock of gastric juice wherewith to begin the 
digestion of a meal." Rather should we say that appetite 
means gastric juice. It is the initiator of the secretory 
process and digestive activity. Except in stomachical dis- 
ease one probably never has the first without the second, 
and the second is comparatively meagre without the first. 
The question as to whether one should eat when one is 
not hungry, therefore reduces itself to the problem of cre- 

1 Op. cit., p. 235. 



362 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

ating an appetite. As will be seen later, all that has been 
said in an earlier chapter about exercise has psychological 
significance in this connection. Food habits also — likes 
and dislikes — except in certain comparatively rare in- 
stances of physiological repugnance, are primarily psy- 
chological matters, and only secondarily physiological. 
The meaning of this in the rearing of children is reserved 
for later treatment. 

We have said that appetite means gastric juice, and that 
food without interest produces comparatively little gastric 
secretion. Pavlov demonstrated this by two experiments 
of great importance. First, he introduced bread and co- 
agulated egg white directly into the stomach of a sleeping 
dog through the opening that had been made. After an 
hour or more not a drop of juice had appeared. A glass 
rod passed into the food of the stomach came out dry. 
Flesh excited some secretion, but its appearance was con- 
siderably retarded, and it was scant during the first hour. 
Besides, its digestive action was weak. In order to show 
that the loss of value of food without attention and desire 
was not caused by the fact that the animal was sleeping, 
Pavlov next took two dogs, both of which had been oper- 
ated upon in the same way. Into the stomach of one 
pieces of flesh were introduced through the direct opening, 
while the animal's attention was diverted by patting and 
caressing so as to keep him from seeing the food. The 
same weight of pieces of meat was then put into the 
stomach of the second dog through the direct opening, 
but at the same time he was given a sham meal. In both 
cases the pieces of meat were attached to a string, and 
after an hour and a half, during which the dogs were left 
alone in separate rooms, the meat was withdrawn and 
weighed. The difference in the loss of weight through 
digestion was striking. In the dog without sham feeding, 
and consequently without interest in the process, the flesh 
had been reduced by only six grammes, while in the case 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 363 

of the one who was given a fictitious meal when the meat 
was put into his stomach there was a loss of thirty grammes. 
The difference then, in the case of these two dogs, rep- 
resents the digestive value of appetite, of the interests of 
the one in what he was eating, and his desire for it. It 
shows, in other words, the importance of the psychical 
factor. Pleasure in what one is eating starts and pro- 
motes the flow of gastric juice, and lack of interest delays 
the process, lessens the quantity when the secretion be- 
gins, and seems to reduce its digestive value. Pavlov's 
conclusions have been verified by Bickel and Sasaki, 1 who 
observed a generous flow of gastric juice in dogs while 
they were being given a fictitious meal. In one case when 
the sham feeding lasted for only five minutes the secretion 
continued for twenty minutes, and in that time a large 
quantity of pure gastric juice was collected. 

Carlson emphasizes another phase of this complex 
psychophysiological process of digestion — a factor big 
with psychological meaning. It is the tonic effect of appe- 
tite upon the alimentary canal. "The significance of 
hunger and appetite for digestion," he says, "is appar- 
ently not so much in the actual yield of appetite gastric 
juice as in the fact that when these sensation-complexes 
are present the entire gastro-intestinal tract, both on the 
motor and on the secretory side is in fit condition to 
handle the ingested food." 2 Both factors — "psychic" 
juice and tonus — are evidently present in keen anticipa- 
tion of interesting food, and each is greatly increased when 
the expectation is realized by the pleasant taste of masti- 
cation. Cannon, speaking somewhat more technically of 
the tonic effect, says: "Tonus as an essential factor of 
gastric peristalsis is first given by vagus impulses, and later 
maintained by the stomach itself. . . . Probably a psy- 
chic tonus is developed by the taking of food." The vagi 
and the splanchnics "are nerves which increase or decrease 

1 Op. cit. * Op. cit., p. 247. 



364 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

the tonus of gastric musculature, and thereby affect peri- 
stalsis. The absence of stomach movements, for example, 
in states of exhaustion, can be explained by the failure of 
vagus impulses; and in emotional states by the presence 
of splanchnic impulses. Both conditions result in absence 
of gastric tonus." * 

Disturbances of one sort or another may, however, in- 
terrupt the anticipation of interesting food. In speaking 
of the salivary reflex, attention was called to the fact that 
interferences may be started and the process inhibited. 
The dry mouth during nervous tension was mentioned as 
an illustration. Inhibition has also been observed in the 
secretion of gastric juice. Bickel and Sasaki brought a 
cat into the room of one of their dogs. The animal be- 
came furious and struggled to reach it. The cat was then 
removed and the dog was given a sham meal. He was 
hungry and ate ravenously, yet little gastric juice was se- 
creted. Twenty minutes after the meal ended only nine 
cubic centimetres of juice of a rather poor quality had 
been secreted, while Pavlov, in a calm dog, had secured 
from twelve to fifteen cubic centimetres of pure juice in 
from six to ten minutes. Bickel and Sasaki then con- 
tinued the test of the effect of anger by giving their dog a 
sham meal, and after the gastric secretion was well started 
again bringing the cat into the room. As before, the dog 
became violently angry and struggled again at his chain. 
Though the secretion had been well under way for fifteen 
minutes, only a few drops of a poor quality of juice ap- 
peared. The effect of the previous state of excitement 
continued and checked the flow. Oechsler 2 has also found 
that the secretion of the pancreatic juice is suppressed in 
animals by anger. So rage checks the secretion of all the 
juices that are essential to the chemical changes in food 

1 American Journal of Physiology, vol. 20, p. 250. 

2 Internationale Beiirage ziir Pathologie und Therapie der Ern&hrungstdr- 
ungen, vol. 5, p. 1. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 365 

during digestion. For some time after a fit of anger diges- 
tion ceases. But violent rage is not needed to produce 
the inhibition. Timidity may give the same result. Le 
Conte found that, in dogs, fear of strange surroundings 
delayed the secretion of gastric juice. With his animals 
inhibition occurred when they were tied. After the dogs 
became accustomed to the restraint, however, the secre- 
tion was not disturbed. 

We are now able to understand why the child upon 
whom Hornborg 1 experimented failed to secrete gastric 
juice at the sight of food. Dogs, under these circum- 
stances, are eager to be fed and they dance around joy- 
ously. The child, on the other hand, became angry and 
began to cry when shown food that he was not allowed 
for the moment to eat. The same observation was made 
by Bogen. 2 One of his patients, a boy with closed oesoph- 
agus, and gastric fistula, became so angry at the sight of 
food which was withheld that, when he was calm and the 
food had been given to him, no gastric juice was secreted. 
It is clear then that not only are pleasurable emotions 
favorable to digestion, but those that are unpleasant re- 
tard the process by preventing the secretion of gastric 
juice. Not anger and rage alone have this effect, but also 
worry and anxiety. Indeed, as the investigations of Bickel 
and Sasaki led them to conclude, all depressing emotions 
delay digestion, and prevent it from being carried on with 
its customary vigor when once it has started. A further 
inference may be drawn from these investigations which 
greatly increases the significance of these striking results. 
It will be remembered that gastric secretion when well 
started under favorable conditions may be quickly checked 
and stopped by anxiety or anger. Clearly, then, emo- 
tional influences unfavorable to digestion are stronger 
than those that promote it. 

1 Op. cit. 

* H. Bogen, Archivfiir d. gesamte Physiologie, vol. 117, p. 156. 



366 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

All of these facts are immensely important in the psy- 
chology of daily life, yet they do not close the story. To 
insure proper digestion the food must be carried along 
through the alimentary canal so as to be acted upon by 
the digestive juices in different parts of the canal, and be 
exposed to a wide area of the intestinal wall for absorption. 
It was while studying these mechanical aspects of digestion, 
says Cannon, 1 that "I was led to infer that just as there 
is a psychic secretion, so likewise there is probably a 
psychic tone or psychic contraction of the gastro-intes- 
tinal muscles as a result of taking food." Investigations 
have sustained Cannon's conjecture. 

When a cat becomes infuriated, in addition to the ex- 
ternal manifestations of rage, "the activities of the stomach 
and intestines are stopped." 2 Cannon found that the 
same changes occur under similar conditions in dogs, rab- 
bits, and guinea-pigs. 3 Fear and distress in the cat had the 
same effect as rage, stopping all movements in both the 
large and small intestines. 4 But violent excitement is not 
needed to inhibit the movements. Auer 5 observed that 
the handling required to tie rabbits to the board, however 
gentle the experimenter may strive to be, stops peristalsis 
for a variable length of time. The movements shortly 
appear again. "But if the animal be startled in any way, 
or if it struggles, motion is again abolished for some time." 
Cannon watched the stomach of a vigorous young male 
cat for more than an hour, and "during that time not the 
slightest beginning of peristaltic activity appeared; yet 
the only visible indication of excitement in the animal 
was a continued quick twitching of the tail to and fro." 6 

1 Walter B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage, 
1915, p. 13. 

2 Walter B. Cannon, Address at Johns Hopkins University, April 17, 191 6. 

3 Op. cit., p. 15. 

* Walter B. Cannon, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 6, p. 251. 
B John Auer, American Journal of Physiology, vol. 18, p. 347. 
6 Op. cit., p. 15. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 367 

Lommel l observed the same effect of slight degrees of ex- 
citement. He noticed that small dogs placed in strange 
surroundings frequently showed no contractions of the 
stomach for two hours or more. "Like the peristaltic 
waves in the stomach, the peristalsis and the kneading 
movements" [segmentation] "in the small intestine, and the 
reversed peristalsis in the large intestine, all cease when- 
ever the animal shows signs of emotional excitement." 2 
Auer found that irritating odors also produce temporary 
inhibition of gastric motility. Esselmont 3 likewise con- 
cludes that many emotional states stimulate peristalsis, 
and that other emotional conditions inhibit the movements; 
and Roosbach 4 has established the stoppage of intestinal 
peristalsis in man from the same causes as those that pro- 
duce it in the lower animals. Finally, Fisher and Fisk 
sum up 6 the more recent investigations by saying that 
"the X-ray has detected the arrest of the peristaltic move- 
ments of the stomach and intestines because of a strong 
emotion." And "some peculiarly constituted persons," 
they add, "who take their work and obligations with a kind 
of seriousness that amounts almost to fear, cannot eat any- 
thing of consequence until their day's work is ended. The 
digestive processes seem to be at a standstill until then." 

Appetite is thus seen to have a wide physiological reach. 
It touches digestion at various points. Among them all, 
however, it should be emphasized that the "psychic" 
juice starts digestion, and the significance of this in pro- 
moting the continuance of the process cannot be over- 
estimated. With meat, as Pavlov found, because of the 
pleasure which this food affords dogs, the "psychic" juice 
initiates rapid digestion which is afterward aided by the 

1 Felix Lommel, Milnchener medizinische Wochenschrift, 1903, 2, p. 1634. 
i Cannon, op. cit., p. 16. 

3 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1899, 
p. 899. 
* Deutsches Archiv fur klinische Medizin, vol. 46, p. 323. 
6 How to Live, p. no. 



368 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

further secretion caused by this first excitant. The stay 
of food in the digestive canal is thus shortened. With 
certain other foods the "psychic" juice seems even more 
indispensable. "Bread or egg white eaten without appe- 
tite, or introduced into the stomach unobserved, will lie 
there for a long time without the least appearance of change. 
In such cases the appetite juice is the sole initiator of the 
digestive process. When started by its assistance, the 
digestion of these foods proceeds spontaneously. The 
'psychic' juice here plays a similar role to that of the 
igniting material which sets the fuel in the stove ablaze, 
and for this reason it has been called by Khizbin 'igniting 
juice.'" 1 

Starling, estimating the conclusions of Pavlov and others, 
and bringing them into connection with the physiological 
processes, summarizes the results for physiology as follows: 
The normal gastric secretion is "due to the co-operation 
of two factors. The first and most important is the ner- 
vous secretion, determined through the vagus nerves by 
stimulation of the mucous membrane of the mouth, or by 
the arousing of appetite in the higher parts of the brain. 
The second factor, which provides for the continued secre- 
tion of gastric juice long after the mental effects of a meal 
have disappeared, is chemical, and depends on the produc- 
tion in the pyloric mucous membrane of a specific sub- 
stance or hormone, which acts as a chemical messenger to 
all parts of the stomach, being absorbed into the blood, 
and thence exciting the activity of the various secreting 
cells in the gastric glands. . . . The juice secreted in the 
second phase must vary according to the quantity of gas- 
tric hormone produced in the pyloric mucous membrane, 
and therefore with the nature and amount of substances 
produced in the preliminary digestion of the gastric con- 
tents by means of the psychic juice." 2 

1 Pavlov, op. cit., p. 125. 

1 Ernest H. Starling, Human Physiology, 1915, pp. 695 JT. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 369 

It is clear then that digestion is not merely physiological. 
The process is very complex and includes psychic factors 
which precede and initiate the physiological action. Sim- 
ply taking food — even the right food — does not fulfil the 
requirements of nutrition. Successful eating is both a 
science and an art. The science consists in determining 
the suitable dietary in a given case. This is the physician's 
task. The art lies in planning conditions that shall pro- 
mote the physiological processes favorable to digestion. 
These conditions are devices to produce the anticipatory 
mental states which start the "psychic" juice and this 
planning is primarily the function of the home-keeper, and 
of men and women in their personal arrangements. Effi- 
ciency means first of all efficient living, and intelligence 
requires conservation of all the factors that contribute to 
health; and, among these, digestion is not second. Henry 
Ward Beecher's epigrammatic cry that dyspeptics cannot 
enter the Kingdom of Heaven was not a joke. There are 
many other high places this side of Heaven from which 
they are barred. For health and happiness, adjustment 
of one's personal life to the facts disclosed by these experi- 
ments is imperative; and to this discussion we now turn. 

In interpreting these investigations for guidance in the 
psychology of life the first thought likely to come to the 
amateur thinker is that he should eat only what he wants. 
This would naturally lead to the elimination of the less 
palatable and, in many cases, the more substantial foods. 
Foods, however, have different nutritive value. Some are 
worth eating for what they give us, and others are designed 
to furnish an agreeable end to the meal. Desserts have im- 
mense importance in the psychology of eating. There is 
no doubt that they increase and prolong the secretion of 
gastric juice; but they are not the nutritive foods, and the 
latter are the things that would often be omitted by choice 
if one consulted only the vagaries of taste. But they are 
also the foods that the body needs. Consequently, the 



37© PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

first dietary problem for an adult, after being advised by 
a skilled physician, is to create an appetite rather than 
to humor it. 

Here then is seen the further significance for appetite, 
and consequently for digestion, of exercise in the open air. 
Exercise purifies the blood by increasing the intake of oxy- 
gen and the output of carbon dioxide. It quickens and 
improves metabolism by a more rapid circulation of blood 
and an increase of the oxygen supply. Many more per- 
sons than are commonly supposed suffer from intestinal 
intoxication — the accumulation of toxic products from un- 
digested food. In its milder forms this causes lassitude 
and headaches. Exercise in the open air tends to elimi- 
nate these toxic products through the various excretory or- 
gans, and the more rapid circulation of the blood aids this 
elimination and promotes a vigorous metabolism. Much 
of the value of osteopathy and massage consists in giving 
passive exercise to the organs and muscles of the body. 
Those who are too indolent to exercise their own body, 
pay to have it exercised. 

"Eat what you want to eat" depends upon what you 
want. After one has produced a vigorous appetite this 
advice regarding eating, when given by an intelligent 
physician, is good; but for the anaemic, headachy, tox- 
asmic man or woman the first admonition should be: "Play 
tennis or golf, ride horseback, or walk five miles a day, 
and then eat what you want." Having taken exercise in 
the open, the body will demand substantial food and the 
appetite will crave it. The sight and smell of roast beef 
with vegetables will then be more enticing and therefore 
produce more "psychic" juice than the most delicate 
meringue air-bubbles. 

Training in childhood evidently plays an important 
role in producing likes and dislikes for food. Barring 
physiological repugnance, which is far less common than 
is usually thought, likes and dislikes are due altogether to 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 371 

early environment and training. Every nation has its 
peculiarities in eating. It is not necessary to refer to the 
insects eaten by certain primitive peoples whose diet is 
abhorrent to civilized races. Some of the choicest deli- 
cacies of the modern epicure, as frogs' legs, caviare, eels, 
and calves' brains are abhorrent to sight and taste before 
the liking has been acquired. The foods that shall appeal 
to the man and woman, and excite the salivary and gas- 
tric reflexes so as to prepare the way for vigorous and 
healthy digestion are decided in the homes of boys and 
girls whose mothers are often more mindful of the mo- 
ment's indolent ease than of the future welfare of their 
children. 

Regularity in meals is advocated because the digestive 
organs need rest. This is surely important, but there is also 
a psychological argument in its favor that has a bearing 
upon the secretory activity of which we have been speak- 
ing. When meals are served at definite hours, the thoughts 
naturally turn to eating when the time arrives. This pre- 
pares the salivary and gastric reflexes for stimulation. 
Saliva may even be secreted at the thought of the hour. 
If one observes oneself at such a time one will often find 
the mouth watering. This is especially the case when one 
anticipates something pleasant to the taste. For this 
reason it is important that business and professional men 
have pleasant places in which to lunch, and that women 
in the home have the table prepared and luncheon served 
in quite as interesting a way as if they were to have guests. 
A noisy restaurant, which a man does not anticipate en- 
tering and in which the surroundings are disagreeable, 
defeats the first purpose of taking food, which is to excite 
the digestive reflexes, and by defeating the first it greatly 
weakens the second — the continued production of gastric 
juice. For the "psychic" juice is the "igniting juice." 
Women, again, who eat a "picked-up lunch" are in much 
the same position as the dogs into whose stomachs food 



372 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

was introduced through the gastric fistula. The absence 
of attention and interest in the dogs prevented the secre- 
tion of gastric juice, and the food remained long undigested. 
Probably here also lies the explanation of loss of appetite 
in some women who do their own housework. The long- 
delayed anticipation and the continued odor of the food 
fatigues and dulls the taste-secretory mechanism, so that 
when the meal is served it fails to start the "psychic" 
flow of the salivary and gastric juices, which are the be- 
ginning of appetite. The knowledge of what is to be 
served also has the same effect. We are accustomed to 
speak of higher and lower thoughts, but these are relative 
terms having reference to the value of their content, and 
the psychology of digestion shows that eating without 
previous pleasurable thoughts of the meal defeats its end. 
The important thing is that the anticipation be "normal" 
and find its gratification in well-prepared, wholesome foods. 

On the other hand, the vulgar rich — those who display 
their wealth in sensuous indulgence — who are continually 
seeking some gastronomic novelty soon lose pleasure in 
foods they should enjoy. The sensitiveness of their diges- 
tive reflexes is dulled. Satiated by superfluity and novelty 
they are like the children in such families to whom the 
usual toys at Christmas bring no joy. Excess has blunted 
the sensations that should arouse agreeable feelings. Their 
tastes and emotions are diseased. They are pathological 
gastronomists. 

The conditions of modern life produce much the same 
effect in other ways. The sedentary life of business and 
professional men in the strain of the world's work lowers 
the physical vitality and raises the threshold of appetite. 
So the taste must be tempted. Not, however, so much 
with unusual foods as with delicacy and attractiveness in 
the manner of serving. This is the explanation of the 
importance of the grade of the luncheon restaurant. It is 
well known that excellent quality of food and cooking fails 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 373 

to tempt if the service be not neat. Pleasant conversa- 
tion with choice friends adds to the zest. In part, it is the 
psychological principle of the summation of stimuli. Many 
agreeable sensations working together have more value 
in brightening the emotions than their sum when applied 
separately. The psychology of the crowd also plays its 
role; and a few congenial friends in animated conversation 
always make a psychological crowd. Appetite, like ideas, 
is then contagious. 

Heated discussions, however, should be avoided. Even 
though anger does not arise, the tension of too serious dis- 
cussion tends to inhibit the reflexes and check the secre- 
tion of gastric juice. Investigations have shown that 
moderate excitement of a disagreeable tone quickly reacts 
upon the bodily activities. In digestion the effect is prob- 
ably produced by draining off nervous impulses through the 
excessive activity of higher brain-centres, and partly, again, 
by setting up interferences. In any case, a too active 
mind starts resistance to the action of lower reflexes that 
in their very nature are sensitive to obstructions. This is 
the psychological reason for the abolition of "shop talk" 
at meals. One's business is too serious for table talk. 
The conversation should be in lighter vein. Naturally, 
the subjects should be those in which the group is inter- 
ested, but the interest should be of the amateurish sort, 
without the excitement of fixed convictions. On this ac- 
count the associates should be selected with some thought. 
Social likes and dislikes will take care of this, but there 
should be agreement upon the place and hour. It would 
be well if business and professional men would arrange 
their luncheon groups with much the same thought as they 
plan a dinner, taking care that the members be congenial. 
Time enough should be allowed to avoid the feeling of 
hurry, for hurry, like worry, is inhibiting in its effect. A 
fifteen-minute luncheon is a business blunder as well as a 
psychological error. Business efficiency consists in taking 



374 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

account of all the factors that enter into the result, and 
digestion is certainly one of these factors. 

The importance of appetite for digestion shows that 
cafeterias are psychological monstrosities. Their popular- 
ity springs from the mistaken notion that minutes are all 
that count in business efficiency, and from the belief that 
cheapness is altogether a matter of dollars and cents. 
Efficiency depends more upon one's physical condition 
than upon anything else, and some things are expensive 
at any price. We have seen that putting food into the 
stomach does not necessarily mean digestion and nourish- 
ment. Those who eat in cafeterias might as well stay in 
their offices and be fed through gastric fistulae. They would 
save more time. Conversation with those who lunch in 
these eating shops has almost invariably brought the same 
reply. They eat much the same things each day, hurry 
through so as to get back to business, and gradually lose 
their appetite. Because of loss of appetite they limit them- 
selves to the lighter, more appetizing, and frequently less 
digestible foods, and coffee. The doctor usually gets the 
money they save by this economy, and their shortened life 
is heavy interest on the accumulated minutes which they 
deposit to the credit of business. In these places there is 
no incentive to keep the mind from the work one has just 
left. Indeed, men often go across the street to a cafeteria 
that they may think about some matter which is troubling 
them. The atmosphere of these places is hurry. At the 
noon-hour they are crowded, and some one is waiting for 
a vacant seat. Bustle begets nervousness, and the pastry 
is swallowed with a gulp of coffee. This is feeding but it 
is not eating. 

Some things not usually thought of in connection with 
appetite are important in starting the "psychic" flow. 
The stage should be set to create both the bodily feeling 
and suggestion of pleasure. The psychological effect of 
change of clothing is an illustration; and in America this 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 375 

is too largely overlooked. The business or professional 
man comes home tired. He makes only the toilet that 
cleanliness requires, and sits down to dinner. Change in 
raiment is always refreshing. The smoothness of the 
dinner clothes seems to iron out some of the business 
wrinkles of the body. Business is attached to garments 
just as it is connected with the office. Change is, of course, 
the important psychological factor here. The clothes 
may be no better than those that were removed, but they 
are different, and that produces a different feeling. Feel- 
ings seem to be quite as much a matter of clothes as of 
mind. The friction on the body is altered, and it is well 
known that even slight relief from friction is refreshing. 
The relief that comes with change of shoes when one is 
fatigued from walking is a matter of common knowledge. 
This is true even when the shoes do not fit so well as 
those removed. Besides, one sees oneself differently. The 
clothes look fresher merely because one has not seen them 
during the day. Familiarity breeds contempt in more 
ways than one. If it is not exactly contempt in the pres- 
ent instance it is, at any rate, the familiarity of prolonged 
association that makes common, and, psychologically, this 
has much the same effect. The writer has often observed, 
when camping, that change to an equally disreputable suit 
freshens body and mind. Change of any sort usually 
causes some alteration in the feelings and attitude of the 
individual affected. And removal of business clothes rids 
one of many thoughts and worries associated with them. 
All of this puts one into condition to be pleasantly affected 
by the sight and odor of food, and the digestive reflexes re- 
spond more readily to the psychic influence. 

The influence of change on digestion is still more no- 
ticeable when the environment is altered. Vacations, 
even short ones, are good digestive and business proposi- 
tions. Vacations are abhorrent to some merely because 
they require change of habits. But that is the reason for 



376 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE DAY'S WORK 

taking them. A physiological jolt benefits the organs and 
improves digestion. It has been observed that sometimes 
at a banquet one can eat vastly more than the stomach 
would take care of under routine conditions; and, when the 
experience is not repeated too frequently, one awakens the 
following morning mightily refreshed. Probably this is 
due to stomachical tonus chiefly of psychological origin. 
Habits are stultifying. Routine kills. If it does not kill 
the body it blunts its sensory edge. Response to stimula- 
tion, both internal and external, is slower and less efficient; 
and it kills the mind. The distinction from bodily death 
is that he who is mentally dead thinks that he is alive. A 
man who never, or rarely, takes a vacation does things 
mechanically, goes to his office mechanically, does the 
"next thing" mechanically, and his digestion works me- 
chanically. The writer once saw a motto on a business 
man's desk which read, "Do the next thing." Now one 
who does "the next thing" never gets anywhere. There 
is no selection, no discrimination of values. A startling 
change in environment, with its necessary alteration of 
habits, throws one out of gear for the moment. That 
is its value, both bodily and mentally. The things that 
one has been doing are no longer a part of oneself be- 
cause one can no longer do them. So a man is able to 
view them objectively. He has a better perspective. He 
sees proportions more clearly. The worries of business are 
not as troublesome since he sees that some of the matters 
are not so important as he thought when he stood facing 
them. Their magnitude diminishes with distance. Other 
things settle themselves; and this mental composure re- 
acts beneficially upon digestion. 

Change of scene animates the mind by relieving it of the 
weariness of "the same old things"; and the mental re- 
freshment puts one into condition to anticipate one's 
meals. Later, on returning, the old takes on a new look, 
and the man begins his work with a more alert judgment 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIGESTION 377 

because his metabolism is improved. James once shocked 
certain Puritanic, naive people, devoid of humor, by say- 
ing that change is so important that even a spree has its 
value. Any break in routine is refreshing, and the sharper 
the break the better. And quickening the bodily activities 
arouses the appetite and promotes digestion. Indigestion 
is sometimes an organic habit produced in part by the 
monotony of sameness. 

So we see that the mental state is of immense impor- 
tance in the digestive process. An active attitude of an- 
ticipation produces both psychological and physiological 
results. It causes a greater preliminary flow of "psychic " 
juice, and, in addition, has a tonic effect upon the whole 
digestive tract, creating a tonus that promotes the proper 
treatment of the food. The psychical factor yields readily 
to control; and an active, healthy mind, whether the re- 
sult of determination to be pleasant or of the bodily care 
that improves the " feelings," promotes a vigorous metab- 
olism. This gives a keen appetite; and here the signif- 
icance of outdoor exercise, with occasional change of envi- 
ronment, becomes apparent. 

Digestion, then, is a marvellously sensitive process. Its 
delicacy is not noticed during the vigor of youth by those 
who lead a free, active life in the open air. But in years 
of maturity few are unaware of the frailty of the ma- 
chinery by which food is changed into the energy that 
produces the day's work. Clearly, digestion plays a promi- 
nent role in the drama of life. Mind and body are not 
totally separate and different. They function together and 
derangement of one exerts a powerful influence upon the 
other, whatever philosophical difficulties may arise in de- 
fining this relationship. In determining our reconstruction 
of the conditions to which we will adapt ourselves, in our 
thinking and acting, in the habits that we form, in the on- 
slaught of fatigue, and even in the selection of the "self" that 
is to control our fives, digestion is never a silent partner. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Ability, latent, 21, 23/. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 124/. 

Adaptation, 3, 24, 38/.; of animals, 
3/., 12, 39/., 149; and education, 
24JF.; and efficiency, 1, 4/., 23, 
29, 107 jf.; and environment, 27, 
38/., 152; and habit, 2, 86, 100 jf.; 
of man, 4/., 12, 24, 28, 38/., 136, 
269; significance of, 24; unreflec- 
tive, 1, 4, 6/., 30/., 88, 104/., 
131/., 149, 321, 356. 

Adrenalin, 191 Jf. 

Adventures, value of, 20. 

Advertising, 10/.; success of, 17. 

Agassiz, Louis, 102. 

Aptitudes, 124, 134, 145, 147. 

Aristotelian theory, 63/. 

Association, and digestion, 348 Jf.; 
and fatigue, 184/.; fixing, 257^., 
271; interfering, 266, 268, 270; 
and learning, 126 Jf., 142 jf., 156/.; 
and memory, 262 Jf.; perverted, 
353/.; physiological basis of, 240; 
and recall, 216 jj., 239 jf. 

Attention, and habit, 94, 121/.; and 
memory, 221 Jf. 

Automatic writing, 208 Jf., 217. 

Automatization, principle of, 144 Jf., 
iS3, 157, i59- 

Beauford, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis, 

205/. 
Bebel, August, 329. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 38, 369. 
Beethoven, Ludwig, 257. 
Behavior, and adaptation, 1, 28/., 

48, 136; and habit, 86, 93 JF. 
Benzenberg, Johann, 62. 
Billings, Josh, 77. 
Biot, Jean B., ng. 



Bradlaugh, Charles, 71. 

Bradley, James, 53/. 

Brahe, Tycho, 55, 60, 79. 

Buff on, Count de, 115. 

Bushido, 118. 

Business problems, blunders in, 55; 
and efficiency, 4jf.; experimenta- 
tion in, 52, 58. 

Caesar, Julius, 203. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 69. 

Cavell, Edith, 13. 

Charles, King, 62. 

Charles the Tenth, 17. 

Clairvoyance, 78, 80. 

"Clever Hans," 26. 

Coincidences, and adaptation, 16; 
and intelligence, 18; and "reason- 
ing" in animals, 17/. 

Colorado penitentiary system, 15, 
27. 

Copernican theory, 55, 62. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 44. 

Crystal vision, 208/., 217. 

Curtis, Glenn, 56. 

Cuvier, Baron, 66, 117. 

Cyrus, King, 203. 

Daguerre, Louis, 117. 

Dalibard, M., 115. 

Dante, 117. 

Darwin, Charles, 49, 51, 66, 69, 7.6, 
82, 160, 224, 265, 271/., 283. 

Death-rate, 30 jf.; in Europe, 30, 32; 
general, 31/.; of infants and chil- 
dren, 32/.; from organic diseases, 
30, 32; reasons for increase of, 33, 
35; in United States, 30 Jf. 

Diamandi, 249/. 



379 



3 8o 



INDEX 



Diet, 176/., 369/. 

Digestion, appetite in, 361 Jf., 370; 
and daily life, 369 Jf.; importance 
° x >377; and pleasurable emotions, 
365; and psychic secretion of gas- 
tric juice, 356 Jf., 364 Jf., 368; and 
psychic secretion of saliva, 348 Jf.; 
and unpleasant emotions, 365 Jf. 

Diseases, 31/., 35. 

Edison, Thomas, 50, 197, 241. 

Education, of animals, 24; of man, 
24; meaning of, 24. 

Efficiency, and adaptation, 4/., 7, 
40, 107/.; and digestion, 373 /.; 
and experience, 45 Jf.; "experts" 
in, 19, 162; of Germany, 12/.; 
and habit, 101, 134; and learning, 
137 Jf.; measure of, 1; need of 
stimulus in, 22. 

Effort, and monotony, 151; ten- 
dency to minimum, 22, 63, 88, 105, 
113, 148 Jf.; variance of energy in, 
22, 152. 

Eliot, George, 42. 

Emotions, and fatigue, 184; and 
mental complexes, 67/., 75. 

Endurance, and exercise, 174 Jf.; and 
food, 1 76 Jf. 

Energy, and effort, 22, 88; and en- 
durance, 104; and fatigue, 152, 
168, 176, 181/.; frugality of, 7, 
88 Jf.; and incentives, 148 Jf. 

Environment, adaptation to, 1, 3/., 
39; change in, 27/., 38/.; char- 
acter of, 5, 25; and education, 24; 
importance of , 23 ; and prejudices, 
70; reconstruction of, 12, 20; 
stimulating, 23; uneventful, 20, 

24, 38. 

Ericsson, John, 119. 

Exercise, and digestion, 370; and 
enjoyment, 184; importance of, 
170/.; lack of, 33, 35/., 38, 86. 

Experience, bias in, 14/., 18/., 42 Jf., 
48 Jf.; conserved, 200 Jf.; definition 
of, 48; and efficiency, 45 Jf.; and 



learning, 123, 135; and response, 

135; and thinking, 44. 
Experimentation, 8 Jf., 18, 53, 70, 87, 

125, 162; on animals, 72jf.; busi- 
.ness and social problems, 52 Jf., 

61; in science, 52, 58/. 
Extramarginal processes, 157 Jf. 

Facts, c'assification of, 65; interpre- 
tation of, 63 Jf., 76. 

Falkenhayn, General, 47. 

Faraday, Michael, 20. 

Fatigue, and adrenalin, 191 Jf.; 
causes of, 165 Jf., 177; and change, 
185/.; and diet, 176 Jf.; and emo- 
tions, 184, 196/.; and endurance, 
104, i74jf.; and energy, 168, 176, 
181/.; and exercise, 170 Jf., 196; 
and habit, 87/.; indifference to, 
1 68 Jf.; and memory, 184/.; mus- 
cular, 181 Jf.; and practice, 180; 
and rest, 182/.; and school work, 
188/., 194 Jf.; substances, 165 Jf., 
191, 195, 197; and work, 179/., 
181, 183/. 

Filene Co-operative Association, 
103/. 

Firman, 283. 

Fixed opinions, 66 Jf.; cause of, 67, 
70 Jf.; effect of, 66, 69, 1 14 Jf. 

Forgetfulness, motive in, 225, 232 Jf.; 
rapidity of, 253 /. 

Fox, G. V., 119. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 115. 

Franklin, Sir John, 30. 

Fryatt, Captain, 13. 

Fulton, Robert, 55/.; 117. 

Galen, 9. 

Galileo, 19. 

Galvani, 117. 

Gastric juice, psychic secretion of, 

356/., 364/-, 368. < 
Genius, 49; conservatism of, 49 Jf.; 

method of, 51/.; military, 45 Jf. 
Germany, blunders of, 13. 
Gladstone, W. E., 67/. 



INDEX 



38i 



Golf, 67, 132, 139/., 150, 153. 
Grant, U. S., 23, 46. 

Habit, and adaptation, 2, 88, 93, 107, 
no Jf., 121, 134; advantages of, 
87 Jf.; and instinct, 39, 85, 88, 
no/.; and learning, 153/.; and 
least resistance, 88, io4jf., 149; 
periods for formation of, 95 jf.) 
physiology of, 69/., 85 Jf.; practi- 
cal motives in, 105 Jf.; and prog- 
ress, no jf.; selection of, 98 jf., 
113/., 121, 152; of thought, 113/., 
122. 

Halley, Edmund, 61. 

Hansard, Reverend S., 207/. 

Hauser, Samuel T., 336. 

Hawkins, Sir John, 318. 

Health, 32/. 

Henry, Patrick, 23/. 

Hill, James J., 102. 

Holmes, Doctor Oliver Wendell, 116. 

Hooke, Robert, 117. 

Hooker, General Joseph, 47. 

Hubbard, Elbert, 324/. 

Hugo, Victor, 323. 

Humboldt, von, 175, 197. 

Huxley, Thomas, 68, 150, 265. 

Hypnosis, 208/., 212/., 217. 

Imagination, 59/., 279/. 

Inaudi, 249/. 

Indolence, of individuals, 21; racial, 
22. 

Inefficiency, 6, 97 Jf., 149. 

Instinct, 39, 85, 88, 107, in. 

Instruction, function of, 153; im- 
portance of, 124/., 136. 

Intelligence, in animals, 17/.; in 
man, 18, 40; measure of, 123; and 
memory, 244/.; and nervous sys- 
tem, 333/. 

"Intuitions," 160/., 199. 

Irwin, Will, 25, 222. 

Jackson, Stonewall, 47. 
Jefferson, Joseph, 96. 



Jester, Alexander, 273 jf., 284, 286 Jf., 

290. 
Johnson, Doctor, 280/. 
Jouffroy, Claude F., 117. 

Kaiser, the German, 328/. 
Keble, John, 20. 
Kepler, Johann, 49, 55, 60. 
Knowledge, 49, 83; and memory, 
241. 

Langley, S. P., 56. 

Lardner, D., 117. 

Lavoisier, Antoine, 117. 

Learning, and association, 1 26 Jf., 
142, 156/.; and effort, 147/., 
151/., 163; and experience, 123, 
135/.; and habit, 152/.; incen- 
tives to, 147 J"-, 155. 163; and in- 
struction, 124/., 153; and mental 
attitude, 154/.; and monotony, 
151; and nervous activity, 156 Jf.; 
progress in, 137 Jf., 162; rapidity 
of, 251 Jf.; and reasoning, 128/.; 
and tendency to forget, 129; time 
in, 155/.; unconscious adoption 
of method, 130 Jf., 162. 

Lebon, Philippe, 117. 

Lee, General Robert, 46/. 

Lide, Claudia, 149. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 45, 119. 

Liszt, Professor von, 302, 305. 

Lovering, Professor Joseph, 117. 

Macleod, Fiona, 340 Jf. 

Malthus, 49. 

Martineau, Harriet, 150. 

Massaria of Padua, 9. 

McClellan, General George B., 46, 
316/. 

McClure, S. S., 2. 

Mclntyre, Joseph S., 276. 

Meade, General George G., 44. 

Memory, and age, 241 Jf., 269; and 
association, 239 Jf., 257 Jf., 262 Jf., 
271; and attention, 221 J".; eco- 
nomical method of, 266 Jf.; and 



382 



INDEX 



fatigue, 184/.; and forgetfulness, 
200/., 221, 225/., 234/., 253/., 
2 77jf-> and imagery, 246 Jf. ; and 
intelligence, 244/.; and interest, 
200; and knowledge, 241, 269; 
physical basis of, 216 Jf., 234, 240, 
271; and quantity of material, 
268/., 271; and rapidity of learn- 
ing, 251/., 257; and recall, 215/., 
238 Jf.; and repetition, 254/., 
266 Jf., 270/.; and " rest periods," 
260, 270; and retention, 216, 
219/., 239/., 257, 267/., 271; 
selection in, 1 98 Jf., 236, 238, 
264 Jf., 269/., 271; systems of, 
262/. 

Mental complexes, 67 Jf. 

Military achievements, disregard of 
rules, 45 Jf. 

Mollet, Abb6, 115. 

Mommsen, Theodor, 175, 197. 

Montaigne, Michel de, 272. 

Mozart, Wolfgang, 250. 

Napoleon, 17, 45, 53- 

Natural selection, 3. 

Nerve-cells, 156; and fatigue, 167. 

Nervous system, changes in, 333/.; 
and fatigue, 181 /.; and habit, 
69/-, 85/.; and learning, 156/.; 
and memory, 216 Jf., 234, 240, 
271; and vigor of body, 36. 

Neurones, 216 Jf., 240. 

Newcomen, Thomas, 83. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 47, 52, 54, 60. 

Nogi, General, 118. 

Nowakowski, 302. 

Observation, 291 jf. 
Ohm, Georg, 117. 
Older, Fremont, 27. 
Owen, Sir Richard, 55, 66. 

Palmer, Alice Freeman, 78. 
Pasteur, Louis, 117, 119. 
Phrases, and fixed opinions, 70 jf. 



Physical deterioration, 34 jf.; men- 
tal effect of, 38. 

Pinkston, Captain L. P., 38. 

Piozzi, Mrs., 281. 

Plateaus in learning, 137 jf. 

Plenciz, Marcus von, 117. 

Powell, Sir Baden, 106. 

Prejudices, 69 jf.; of to-day, 77; 
warfare against, 76. 

Prison-life, 25 jf., 40. 

"Psychics," n, 78, 80, 283. 

Psychophysical parallelism, 158. 

Reasoning, associative, 128; factors 
in, 51 jf.; illustrations of, 54; and 
mental complexes, 67/.; sources 
of error in, 76. 

Recall, 215 jf.; and associations, 
216 jf., 239jf.; in criminal juris- 
prudence, 219; and mental atti- 
tude, 217; physical basis of, 221, 
240, 271; and voluntary effort, 
218. 

Reflex actions, 94, 98, 107. 

Resistance, psychological effect of, 
21; value of, 20. 

Retention, 215/., ^38, 242/., 257, 
267/., 270; theories of, 220. 

Robertson, Smith, 173. 

Robespierre, 16/. 

Ruckle, 250. 

Rumor, 308; accuracy of, 309 jf. 

Saliva, psychic secretion of, 348 jf. 

S6ances, 15, 283/., 287. 

Selves, varying; abnormal varia- 
tions, 340; changes from develop- 
ment, 332 jf., 346; conflict be- 
tween the, 345 jf.; inconsistencies 
of, 336 jf.; make-believe person- 
ality, 338, 344/-; types of, 315 jf-> 
326/., 328/., 339/. 

Seneca, 203. 

Seward, William H., 327, 330. 

Sharp, William, 340 jf. 

Sherman, General William T., 46. 

Simpson, Doctor James, 64. 



INDEX 



3*3 



Slogans, 42, 71. 

Stimulants, 35/. 

Suggestion, 16, 283/., 289, 303/., 

312. 
Sumner, Charles, 66, 69, 321. 
Survival of fittest, 24, 39, 88. 
Suspended judgment, illustrations 

of, 53 jf.; and reasoning, 53. 
Synapses, and fatigue, 166; and 

memory, 240. 

Taber, Harry, 324. 

Testimony, accuracy of reports in, 
309 Jf.; and biassed opinions, 
282/., 289, 313; and feeling of ac- 
curacy, 273, 288/., 312/.; identi- 
fication, transfer of, 301/.; influ- 
ence of oath, 308; lapse of time in, 
307/.; and memory, 277 Jf.; narra- 
tion and questions, 306/.; obser- 
vation, 2gif.; picture-tests, 305/.; 
and suggestion, 283/., 289, 303/., 
312; and talking, 277^.; and 
thinking, 279 J?-; in trial courts, 
289/. 

Thackeray, W. M., 42. 

Themistocles, 203. 



Thinking, association of ideas, 41/., 
48; factors in, 10, 51 Jf., 82, 198/.; 
geniuses, 48 Jf.; mental attitude 
in, 78 Jf.; method of, 58 Jf.; ob- 
stacles to, 6 ijf. 

Torricelli, 63/. 

"Trial-and-error method," 8/., 18, 
53, 87, 125, 162, 170. 

Tynan, Warden Thomas J., 15, 27. 

Typewriting, experiment in, 137/. 

Viereck, George Sylvester, 329. 
Virchow, Rudolf, 223. 
Voltaire, 76. 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 49. 
Wells, Gideon, 321. 
West, former Governor, 28. 
Weston, Edward Payson, 173. 
Will, adaptability of, 28/.; and 

bodily organs, 38. 
Wilson, President, 333. 

Yeats, W. B., 340/. 
Young, Thomas, 117. 

Zinny, 301/. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Abbott, David P., 16, 284. 
Abbott, John S. C, 46. 
Adam, J. and J. C, 219. 
Adams, Francis, 331. 
Aschaffenburg, Gustav, 148. 
Auer, John, 366/. 

Bagehot, Walter, 114. 
Bair, J. H., 91, 265. 
Baird, J. W., 241. 
Baker, Smith, 187. 
Ball, Sir Robert S., 54. 
Bancels, J. Larguier des, 255, 

308. 
Bancroft, Frederic, 327, 330. 
Barrett, E. Boyd, 120. 
Batson, Wm. H., 131, 146, 260. 
Bayliss, Wm. M., 166, 182, 191 
Bean, C. H., 253, 255. 
Benedict, F. G., 177. 
Bennett, Arnold, 71, 222, 334. 
Bergstrom, J. A., 90, 265. 
Bickel, Adolf, 359/., 363/. 
Bidder,.F., 348. 
Bigham, J., 246/., 256. 
Binet, Alfred, 241, 249/., 254, 

265, 303/. 
Boas, Franz, 29. 
Bogen, H., 365. 
Bolton, T. L., 241. 
Book, W. F., 131, 146, 265. 
Borst, Mademoiselle, 306 JJ. 
Boswell, James, 280/. 
Bourdon, B., 241. 
Bradford, Gamaliel, 46, 317/. 
Brill, A. A., 227/. 
Brown, D. E., 255. 
Brown, Mr. Justice, 290. 
Brown, Lloyd T., 36. 
Brown, Warner, 92. 



Browning, M., 255. 
Bryan, W. L., 148. 
Burckhardt, Jacob, 57. 
Butler, Samuel, 83, 330/. 

Cade, A., 359/. 

Calkins, Mary W., 245, 247, 265. 
Cannon, W. B., 192/., 363, 366/. 
Carlson, Anton Julius, 35gjf. 
Carpenter, William B., 86, 207/. 
Carrington, Hereward, 284. 
Cave, Edward, 115. 
267, Chapman, J. C, 187. 

Chittenden, Russell H., 177. 
Choate, Judge, 290. 
Clodd, Edward, 68. 
Cohn, Jonas, 245. 
Coleridge, Samuel T., 204/. 
Colvin, Stephen S., 245. 
Crile, Doctor George W., 35. 
Culler, Arthur J., 91. • 
Cutten, George B., 10. 

Dana, Charles A., 317. 
Davey, S. J., 284, 286/. 
256, Dawson, Coningsby, 332. 
Dearborn, W. F., 256. 
Decroly, O., 241. 
Defoe, Daniel, 304. 
Degand, J., 241. 
Deming, Seymour, 57. 
Denis, W., 192. 
Dewey, John, 57, 149. 
Dickinson, Asa Don, 329. 
Dickinson, G. Lowes, 212. 
Dockeray, F. C, 195. 
Dodge, Theodore A., 46. 



Ebbinghaus, Hermann, 243, 245, 
250 /•» 253/-, 265, 267/. 



385 



386 



INDEX 



Ebert, Ernst, 267. 
Elliott, T. R., 192, 194. 
Ellis, Havelock, 318. 
Ephrussi, P., 251, 254, 267. 
Esselmont, J. E., 367. 

Faraday, Michael, 50, 58^. 
Field, Mr. Justice, 291. 
Finkenbinder, E. O., 251, 253. 
Finzi, Jacopo, 245, 247. 
Fisher, Irving, 34, 106, 175/., 187, 

367- 
Fisk, Eugene L., 34, 106, 176, 187, 

367- 
Folin, Otto, 192. 
Foster, Michael, 165. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 109. 
Freud, Sigmund, 223, 22$ f., 232 _/f. 
Frink, Doctor H. W., 229/. 

Galsworthy, John, 337. 
Galton, Francis, 65, 183/. 
Gotch, Francis, 66. 
Grahame, Kenneth, 332. 
Gross, Hans, 219, 280. 
Gruber, Chas. M., 191 Jf. 

Harris, F. D., 115. 

Harter, N., 148. 

Hartt, Rollin Lynde, 324/. 

Harvey, B. C. H., 220. 

Harvey, William, 115. 

Hawkins, J., 246. 

Heck, W. H., 188, 189. 

Henderson, E. N., 241, 244, 251, 253. 

Henmon, V. A. C., 246/. 

Henri, V., 241, 254, 265. 

Hering, Ewald, 220. 

Hill, L. B., 137/. 

Hill, Leonard, 172, 179, 181. 

Hodge, Doctor H. L., 116. 

Hodgson, R., 281, 283, 287. 

Holder, Charles F., 102. 

Hopkins, Mary A., 75. 

Hornborg, A. F., 359, 361, 365. 

Howells, W. D., 314. 



Hunt, Una, 154, 340. 
Hucthinson, Horace G., 51. 
Huxley, Thomas, 351. 
Hyde, Winneired, 256. 

Ioteyko, J., 176. 

Jacobs, J., 241. 
Jacobs, Walther, 251. 
James, William, 20, 96, 101, 104/., 
109, 113, 157, 159, 278, 347, 377. 
Jennings, Al, 25, 109, 222, z 2 °S- 
Jevons, W. Stanley, 17, 50, 59. 
Johnson, Owen, 1. 
Jones, Doctor Ernst, 226, 234. 
Jones, F. Wood, no. 
Jost, Adolf, 256/., 260. 

Kaes, Th., 333. 

Kaznelson, Helene, 360. 

Keen, Doctor W. W., 75. 

Keller, Helen, 200 Jf. 

Kemsies, F., 246/. 

Kingsley, Charles, 15. 

Kipiani, V., 176. 

Kirkpatrick, E. A., 246/., 254, 256. 

Knors, C, 268. 

Kuhlmann, F., 280. 

Ladd, G. T., 257. 

Langford, Nathaniel P., 3^6. 

Latarjet, A., 359/. 

Lathrop, George Parsons, 50. 

Lay, W. A., 246. 

Lee, Frederic C, 167, 169/., 191. 

Leuba, J. H., 256. 

Lewis, E. St. Elmo, 100/. 

Liebig, Justus von, 248. 

Lipmann, Otto, 254, 256. 

Livermore, Wm. R., 44. 

Lobsien, M., 241, 246. 

Lommel, Felix, 367. 

Lowrie, Donald, 26. 

Lusk, Graham, 177/. 

Lyman, Henry, 192. 

Lyon, D. 0., 243/., 252. 



INDEX 



387 



MacCauley, Clay, 180. 
Mackenzie, Compton, 332. 
Maggiora, 186. 
Magneff, N., 253. 
Magnus, Hugo, 9. 
Marchant, James, 160. 
Martineau, Harriet, 205/. 
McCall, W. A., 187. 
McClellan, General George B., 316/. 
Meigs, Doctor Charles D., 116. 
Meisl, A., 350. 
Meredith, George, 236 Jf. 
Meumann, E., 241/., 246/., 253, 

256, 267/. 
Moon, R. O., 9. 
Morgan, C. Lloyd, 127. 
Mosso, A., 180/., 185/. 
M tiller, G. E., 90, 246/., 250/., 253, 

256, 265. 
Munn, Abbie F., 254, 256. 
Miinsterberg, Hugo, 89 Jf., 246, 265. 
Murray, R. H., 318/. 
Myers, E. J., 245. 
Myers, F. W. H., 220. 

Netschajeff, A., 241, 246. 
Neumann, Giinter, 267. 
Nice, L. B., 193. 
Nicolai, W., 350. 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 224. 
Nipher, Francis E., 60. 
Norsworthy, Naomi, 251/. 

Offner, Max, 254, 256, 267. 
Ogden, R. M., 251. 
Ordahl, Louise Ellison, 131. 
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, nojf. 
Osier, Doctor William, 117. 

Pavlov, Ivan, 176, 348^. 
Pentschew, Christo, 246, 251, 253, 

267. 
Perkins, Nellie L., 256/. 
Perrin, Fleming A. C, 128. 
Pfungst, Oscar, 26/. 
Pierce, Edward L., 69. 
Pilzecker, A., 246/., 256, 265. 



Piper, H., 167. 

Pohlmann, Adolf, 241/., 246, 254, 

256. 
Powell, Frederick Y., 68. 
Prince, Doctor Morton, 108, 213 /., 

218. 
Pyle, Wm, 244/., 251/. 

Quantz, J. 0., 251. 

Radossawljewitsch, P. R., 251, 253. 

Rejall, A. E., 137/. 

Repplier, Agnes, 75. 

Reuther, Fritz, 254, 256. 

Rhodes, James F., 321. 

Richet, Charles, 348. 

Rignano, Eugenio, 220. 

Rittenhouse, E. E., 31 /., 36. 

Roach, Walter W., 187. 

Robertson, T. B., 220. 

Robinson, L. A., 189. 

Rossbach, M. J., 367. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 118, 121. 

Rubner, Max, 177. 

Ruger, Henry A., 131, 154, 253. 

Russell, Bertrand, 55. 

Sargent, Dudley A., 173. 

Sasaki, K., 359, 363/. 

Schafer, A. E., 166. 

Schmidt, C, 348. 

Schumann, F., 90, 246/., 251, 253. 

Schuyten, M. C, 246. 

Segal, J., 246. 

Semon, Richard, 220. 

Sharp, Elizabeth, 340 f. 

Smith, F. C, 32. 

Smith, M. K., 253. 

Smith, May, 191. 

Smith, W. G., 254. 

Spencer, Herbert, 160. 

Stanton, Edwin, 317. 

Starbuck, Edwin D., 154. 

Starch, D., 251, 256. 

Starling, Ernest H., 166, 179, 368. 

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 30. 



43 

M*- 



3 



3 88 



INDEX 



Steffens, Lottie, 251, 267. 
Stern, L. W., 303, 305/., 308. 
Stevens, Romiett, 134. 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 23, 26, 314, 

3 2 7, 33 2 . 335- 
Stirling, Wm., 167. 
Strong, Edw. K., Jr., 155. 
Sully, James, 298. 
Swayne, Mr. Justice, 290. 
Swift, Edgar J., 130/., 141/. 
Sybel, A. von, 246/. 

Tashiro, Shiro, 216. 
Thompson, W. H., 349. 
Thorndike, Edward L., 99, 130, 138, 
150, 187, 190, 196, 251, 253. 

Vachee, Colonel, 53. 
Verrall, Mrs. A. W., 210 Jf. 



Verworn, Max, 166. 
Vulpius, Oscar, 333. 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 160. 
Washburn, M. F., 255. 
Watson, John B., 8, 127, 130. 
Weber, F., 254, 268. 
Wells, H. G., 53, 119, 322. 
Wessely, Rudolf, 241/. 
Whitehead, L. G., 246, 251. 
Wigmore, John H., 308. 
Wimms, J. H., 183. 
Winch, W. H., 241, 244/. 
Wirt, Wm., 23. 
Woodworth, R. S., 257. 
Wreschner, Arthur, 306. 
Wright, W. R., 148, 155, 196 

Yoakum, C. S., 195. 



Treat m en t n L a t 9 e e Nor a 2 9 o n o e 4 S ' UmOXide 

f"S™ WonTa chnotogJB8 



